


Recasting Shadows

by lofty



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken | Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword
Genre: Blood and Violence, Childhood Trauma, Death, Drama, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, I hope, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Mutilation, Original characters for plot purposes, Possessive Behavior, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prepare Yourself!, Raven's Drama Lucius's Trauma, Sexual Abuse, drama in my drama?, fire emblems in my fire emblem?, like seriously i dont think this is for the faint of heart, the ending will make up for it, this got dark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-03-07 08:39:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 14
Words: 80,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13431033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lofty/pseuds/lofty
Summary: They've been in love for ages. They go back for years. So why does Lucius still have such a difficult time trusting Raven with his body? Tensions rise to a boiling point until the pot tips over, and Raven is forced to comprehend this mess the hard way while Lucius relives a part of his damaged past he keeps locked deep in the confines of his subconscious.





	1. Green Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really just forcing myself to write something, anything, just to find my groove, and somehow this monstrosity emerged. I make no claims to quality.
> 
> I uh. feel the need to reiterate that this fic is going to have some highly disturbing elements. It will involve an interpretive slant to Lucius's troubled upbringing due to some phrasing he used in one of his support conversations. There will also be non-con elements littered all over this story that happen in the present, not just the past, and it implies _childhood sexual trauma_. If it bothers you enough to make you uncomfortable, please don't read any further. I will warn for content of that nature in whatever chapter it turns up in. That said, this is also primarily a hurt/comfort fic centered on a developing relationship, so things will get a little better.

“We’re going to have to get that checked out. I have half a mind to carry you.”

Made aware of his tottering gait, Lucius tries to correct it as best as he is able. When he straightens his walk, however, he sucks in a breath and commits a subdued wince. He dusts off the tension with a light chuckle.

“You needn’t trouble yourself. Judging by our surroundings, we’ve almost made it. Our contractor should appear at a moment’s notice.”

Castle Khathelet battles its mountainous backdrop over the horizon for skyward supremacy; this much is visible from the bustling town they navigate through. Raven peers down at the jewel-encrusted lance, its slender length unfamiliar to his rough hands. Its opulence, however, glitters somewhere in his past, when people would refer to him as Lord Raymond instead. He wrinkles his nose.

“Pacing about and wringing his hands, probably. Judging by this item’s value to House Khathelet, he won’t want to waste any time getting it back before his father catches wise to his folly.”

“Very true. We should make haste to the church before we turn the wrong hea—oh!”

Eye on the spire, Lucius gets caught by surprise when Raven heaves him up onto his arm by the backs of his thighs. The monk flings both of his arms out toward his fellow mercenary’s shoulders to cling for dear life against this sudden upheaval. Heads do turn, and Lucius feels his face burn.

“You’re not making any kind of haste like this,” grumbles Raven, and he moves forward.

“Lord Raven!”

 _His stubbornness really knows no bounds_ , thinks Lucius with a touch of distress for being made the spectacle he’d been advising against. Raven just ignores all the pointed gazes and tittering gossip and soldiers ahead. He turns the nearest corner into a more private byway where the only souls present are a couple of destitute beggars harrying a tradesman who shuns them while saddling up his old mule.

They traverse the arteries of town for shy of a minute longer until they hear bickering within the back alley of the church. The closer they get, the more distinct the outbursts become. As they round the great stone building, the mercenaries spot their client in full. His crimson cape, glossy jade hair, gilded breastplate, and the poniard glinting at his belt distinguishes him from the everyday commotion of peddlers and townspeople. The impact of eye contact is instantaneous and their eminent client stuffs whatever emotions he was squeezing out down with a welcome smile. His two retainers only manage to imitate his transformation out of relief, albeit somewhat stilted.

“Ah! You’ve made it, and with such expedient timing!” he greets, with the same volume as before but smoothed over into hasty composure.

Raven lowers his partner carefully to the ground, then matches his approach with the green-haired noble until they’re standing a few feet away from each other. They’re almost eye-to-eye in stature, backs straight, focus unwavering. The patron regards Raven with restrained amusement turning a corner of his lips up. The mercenary bristles; his eyes harden.

“Is there something funny about this? If so, I fail to grasp it.”

“I _remember_ now! I thought you had struck me as familiar. It was so long ago I was still learning my letters, but you had this uncouth demeanor that your noble upbringing couldn’t quite beat into you.” He closes the distance between their faces some more. “And now… you’re…” He curls his knuckles against his mouth in disbelief that looks derisive in certain slants of light. “It’s no small wonder you failed to address me properly!”

Raven quirks his eyebrow at the man. “What? I fail to remember anything about you.”

“Tsk! Again with the brusque lack of manners! Being a mercenary quite suits you, my good ‘Lord’ Raymond! Hahaha! But I suppose that’s what happens when your House is all but burned to the ground. I should be pitying you, really.”

“Look. Do you want daddy’s lance back already, or not?”

The noble’s eye twitches. He takes a step back to right his position, folding his arms over his chest and not looking quite as amused anymore. “Hmph. Rabble or no, you did correct my blunder, and you did steal Winglaine back from the den of thieves. I will acknowledge that, as mercenaries, you are at the top of your class.” He ushers one of his retainers forth, who scrambles to fish for a leather drawstring pouch to present to Raven. “Your name is on the tongues of even remote hamlet dwellers. Why, a lone mercenary with just a beautiful Sister at his side, barging into a hideout and making quick work of numerous bandits?” His eyes slide over to land on Lucius, his smile reinvigorated with a fonder angle.

“…He is no Sister.”

Dumbstruck, his tongue loses grace. “Wh-What? Did you just say… ‘he’?”

Another weighty pause slides between all parties as Lucius becomes the centerpiece of attention against the church's drab walls. He ducks his head and slides his lips together as though meaning to speak, fidgeting with the generous sleeve of his monk’s habit as he tries to conceal his discomfiture with folded wrists and arms that don’t cover his form. Nerves ironed over some, he tries again. “I… I beg your pardon, Lord Sebastian, but… I am indeed a man, though my appearance often suggests otherwise.”

Sebastian sweeps past Raven as though possessed, interrupting the imminent exchange. “Hey!” Raven barks, pulling himself away from the subordinate to face this development. Lucius steps back against the church, and before he can process it the lordling’s fingers find strands of his hair.

“Like spun gold…” Sebastian mutters, and then peers at his startled face, a glint in his piercing eyes like a prospector appraising a precious stone he has never seen before. “Your voice is so soft… _too soft_. And your face…” He trails his fingers down his lock and lets his thumb stick out errantly to stroke his cheek on the way. “It’s far too angelic to belong to a maaAARGH!”

Raven had plunged the lance into the small of his back. The retainers each restrain an arm to weaken his impact and halt his advance. They were unable to stop him from effectively thwarting Sebastian’s attention, however. He spins around, nursing his back and fuming.

“How _dare_ you assault me while my back is turned?!”

The mercenary’s glower does not extinguish. “You’re lucky I didn’t use the sharp end. Are we here to do business or what?”

Sebastian grits his teeth, and then steals another glance at Lucius before grudgingly relenting. “Very well. Perhaps my curiosity got out of line for a moment there. Let go of him.”

His vassals release Raven at once. “Lucius, come here.” The monk removes himself from the wall and, with a deferential nod toward Khathelet’s lordling, limps to Raven’s side. Raven stands halfway blocking him from view, steely copper eyes trained on everyone at once.

“Let’s proceed. And let me count the coins before you leave,” Raven says. “I hate being duped.”

“Of course. I would only reward fair work with fair pay, and you’ll find I have the means to provide. Oh, and…” He snaps a few times at his redheaded retainer, a freckled youth with shaggy hair at odds with his smart trappings. He rushes to the other side of the cloud-colored rouncey and works at its sidebags until he procures a long staff with a glassy green orb perched on one end, and decorative embellishments carved into the body itself. He walks back to his lord’s side and presents it to him. He takes it, and then extends it to Lucius with a smile, making a point to divert it over and away from Raven. Lucius steps forth from behind him to accept.

“I thought I might present you with a small gift. A provision, if you will, to represent my deep gratitude. May this Physic be of service to you.”

Lucius hesitates for a moment to explore the dimensions of his smile, and then exchanges a heartfelt one of his own. “I’m moved, my lord. Thank you for this graciousness. These aren’t so easy to come by. I will use it to heal others in your name.” He tucks it away somewhere behind his sash for temporary safekeeping.

Sebastian’s smile widens liberally as he allows himself to get transfixed. Raven glances up from his counting suspiciously and starts over again. “And while those staves are useful in tending to others, you really ought to patch yourself up, too.” He places an extra golden coin in his hand, to which Lucius shakes his head and tries to give it back.

“No, I’m afraid that’s really too much. I’m sure we’re already given enough for medical treatment.”

“I insist.” He closes his palm over Lucius’s and gently pushes it toward his chest. “My gratitude, and my wish for your good health. Would that I had a vassal as kindhearted and devoted as you. This trampy lifestyle doesn’t suit you at all.”

“Umm…”

At this point Raven shoves the coins back in the purse without concluding his task. “We’re done here, then.” He thrusts Winglaine into Sebastian’s hands and snags Lucius by the wrist. The monk stumbles, yelps, and follows suit, glancing back at the marquess’s heir apologetically before whipping his head forward. Sebastian sucks in an indignant breath.

“Treat him with more care than that, you vandal! He’s injured!”

Raven doesn’t want to hear any more from that man. He hoists Lucius over his shoulder and marches on his way, eager to turn the corner.

“He- He has a point,” Lucius huffs, blowing at his bangs. “You didn’t have to-“ 

“Shut up,” growls Raven. “I didn’t like the way he was treating you.”

“With kindness? He wanted to help us.”

“Don’t be stupid. He has ulterior motives. It’s clear as day. I’ve seen it a hundred times before.”

A tinge of resentment colors Lucius at how abrasive he’s being, but he can scarcely blame him for his feelings. They grew up together, and this wasn’t the first time someone treated him with more admiration than warranted. 

“He knows I am not a woman anymore.”

“Now you’re just pretending to be stupid to piss me off. You know that doesn’t always deter these people. Sometimes, it even makes it worse.”

Lucius remains silent, mulling over his words and finding no room for argument. Moreover, the shoulder guard pressing into his stomach with each stomp makes talking too much a physical chore. He submits to the losing side of the argument so as not to agitate his partner further. Then, after some pause, summons the capacity to make a request.

“Umm… I think… I should like to walk on my own now, if you don’t mind.” 

“You’re hurt. Besides, he has a ‘point’, and I shouldn’t subject you to this trampy lifestyle any longer than I have to.”

“But… this is embarrassing!” He meets eyes with a gaggle of townsfolk who stop their proceedings just to stare. Some giggle, some stare pointedly, whisper, and some regard them with more suspicion. “And you’re being ridiculous! I don’t want to cause such a scene. Can you imagine what assumptions they might be drawing?”

It was one thing to have him perched on his arm with more care, but like this, he just looks like cargo. Raven grunts and replies, “If anyone asks, your leg is hurt. It’s simple. People should understand.”

“Please… I can manage,” begs the monk. “It’s not so bad that I can’t walk.”

“Fine!” He bends down and plants his feet onto the ground, trying not to be rough but finding it a challenge. “If it’ll keep you from complaining so much. But we just got paid, and we’re running low on essential supplies, so we ought to do a bit of shopping before nightfall.”

Lucius staggers and holds onto Raven until he finds his balance, using the Physic staff that slipped from his clothes to avoid toppling over. He’s grateful for it.

“At least I needn’t worry too much about restocking healing staves. Misplaced motives or no, it was very generous of Lord Sebastian to present this to me.”

Raven scoffs. “Hardly generous when you’ve got coffers of lordly riches at your disposal.”

"Oh, don’t be like that. A gift is still a gift, and it was still nice of him. Besides…” He tries to offer Raven a reassuring smile. “I can be more useful this way. Even when you're out of reach, I can heal your wounds."

His brow scrunches further. "Well, I don't like the thought of you healing me with a Physic."

A cloud of confusion veils the monk’s bright, rebounded cheer. "Why?"

"It means you've been separated from me somehow."

Even before Raven can finish, Lucius's gaze falls to the clear, soothing aqua of the staff's orb, its sheen muted by afternoon shadows cast from the row of shops. Raven's overprotective tendency stoked by their earlier encounter continues to smolder into this moment. Nonetheless, his phrasing lights a glow within his heart. He always likes it whenever Raven’s sentiments polarize toward wanting him by his side rather than left behind somewhere safe. 

"You may have your grievances, but not even you can deny it might come in handy someday." He tucks it close to his body and offers him another conciliatory smile. Raven meets him with the barest of acknowledging grunts and turns away to march ahead.

"Come. We have food to buy, beds to find."

“Yes, my lord.”


	2. Maculate Perfection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aight ladies and gents, I'm gonna have to slap a warning on this here chapter for mild sexual content and implied sexual abuse of a minor (in the past).

Even with a recent payment secured, the pair of mercenaries never purchase more than they really need. Their itinerant lifestyle necessitates saving up spare coin in case of emergency. Raven is only Raven, after all, and Lucius only Lucius, but they travel together and make a living together, and they’re all they have most of the time. If either is rendered unable to work, they may need to resort to the stockpile. It’s a rickety lifestyle full of risk and uncertainty, but it’s one they chose. Provisions and medicine are the first errands; this latest foray into a bandit hideout left them wanting of crucial supplies, like vulneraries and antidotes. They buy fresh linen for bandages and various foods for the road, such as apples, biscuits, and salted meat. Neither of them speaks of the earlier situation, but Raven keeps rather close to Lucius and wary of his surroundings.

By the time they finish, the sun had bored beneath the earth, and they stop into a modest inn for a meal and lodging. They dine in relative silence out in the carousing din of the tavern. Raven shovels his pottage down his throat and finishes in a third of the time Lucius can manage, and ends up glowering at anyone who dares venture too close, including the barmaids. A few of them notice him scowling across the tables and avert their eyes, piquing Raven’s suspicions. He gets fed up with his nagging paranoia and ends up asking for a tankard of ale while he waits on Lucius. A fiddler playing a frenzied tune in the corner of the establishment rouses many of the patrons. What ends their supper isn’t the bottom of the monk’s bowl, but a man with a ruddy face who implores Lucius to rise and dance with him. Raven intercepts, perhaps a bit more heated than necessary, then ushers his partner upstairs to the room they bought.

There, they all but collapse on the bed, sprawled halfway on top of it and staring at the ceiling. They’re tired for the same and different reasons. 

“Finally,” says Raven. “I’m glad to be rid of people. Feels like they’ve been getting under my skin all day.”

Lucius turns his head toward Raven’s. “I’ve noticed. You seem particularly cross today.”

“Oh yeah?” Raven does likewise. His face is knit in a deeper scowl than his everyday wear. “Why could that be, I wonder?”

The monk’s expression grows more troubled, and he says nothing in the span of a few blinks. “…I know. I’m very sorry for causing you such distress. It’s my cursed-“

“It’s NOT your fault, dammit!” Raven springs upright on the bed, supporting himself with his palm and fixing his gaze sharply on Lucius below him. “If I could live off of how sorry you are about yourself all the time, I wouldn’t have to eat by my sword anymore!”

Raven’s outburst causes Lucius’s eyes to pop and flicker in the torchlight. “I’m… I’m sorry…”

“Case in point!” He yanks the sash at Lucius’s hip and rummages into the satchel hiding beneath to retrieve the linen strips and the balm, then dives off the bed for the monk’s boot to strip his leg of it. Lucius cries out in surprise and heaves his upper body off the bedspread. “I’m sick to death of other people making you feel bad because you think it’s your fault that it causes these misunderstandings!”

“Ah- I-I can take care of this,” protests Lucius. “It’s no trouble for me at all!”

“I don’t care! Just let me!” He slides the boot off and lays it on the floor next to the foot of the bed. Lucius pouts and relents, letting Raven do what he wishes. “It’s this one, right?” He pats his calf.

“Yes…”

Raven gets to work poulticing the sprain, hitching his long robes up for access. “I don’t know what it’s gonna take for you to finally get it through. You’ve always been this way. So quick to incriminate yourself for someone else’s stupidity, to throw your worth away as nothing more than a burden.” He tugs at the bandage and cuts away a portion with his teeth. “Makes me mad.”

“I…” Wanting to apologize for making him feel bad, Lucius cuts himself short because that’s precisely what would make him mad. He swallows instead, the haze of tears threatening to surface. He fights those back, too. 

“And it makes me mad because I know it’s been beaten into you so hard it’s become a part of you,” he adds with more gravity. “To feel bad for even existing in a capacity that isn’t benefiting someone else. You of all people don’t deserve that.”

A thoughtful pause crosses between them. Raven wraps his leg up tightly, the rhythm of the work helping soothe his ire. After running his mind over those words a couple times, Lucius finally talks. “…It’s as you say. There’s no doubt that my upbringing has in part made me who I am today.” He watches his partner dress his injury, and he, too, finds solace in the process, but also in the care he puts into aiding him, how he moves in the low light and the focus that goes deeper than just his leg. He tries to ward off the guilty feeling that leeches in when he considers how Raven’s small trouble is all for his sake. “I wish I could change my way of thinking, but… it’s not an easy feat.”

“No. I don’t pretend it would be.” He rips another band off.

Lucius wrings his hands. Thinking of his past, particularly the darker parts of it, always casts shadows into his mind. Most of it is dark, so the shadows always tower in ghastly specters, shaped like the monstrous figures that tormented him into undying submission for years of his fragile childhood. Raven finishes up and smoothes his hand over his wrapped ankle to test how well he applied it. Then, he creeps up, places his hands into the monk’s lap, and folds them over his. Lucius is brought back into the light. They lock eye contact. He squeezes.

“Don’t listen to them. You’re worth the world.” Then, his eye contact skitters off elsewhere, and he reminds Lucius of a decade’s boyish past. “Especially… to me.”

“Raven…”

Lucius’s lips part more than warranted, and he gasps. Raven smiles, then sneaks forward to shut him up with a kiss.

“I really don’t care that you forgot to call me lord. We’re past that by now, anyway.” 

He laughs, touching noses with the bigger mercenary on purpose. “It’s still embarrassing! But I’m not taking it back. Not if you don’t want me to.”

“No.” He captures Lucius’s lips between his again and kisses him more fully. When he pulls away, only an inch separates them before he takes him yet again. Lucius moans, a little in surprise, but a little in pleasure. That noise alone strikes a match against Raven’s passions and encourages hope that perhaps he can take things even further tonight.

For how long they’ve come to accept their relationship on the same terms a couple would, as lovers, they’ve never engaged in much bedroom physicality. They’ve held onto each other under the sheets, though Lucius never disrobes for it even when Raven does. They’ve kissed, but only in private, and Lucius is shier about instigating more than his sweetest. That said, their kisses can linger and will escalate and occasionally get to the point that more carnal desires are a hard thing to ignore, but they’ve never managed to breach anywhere beyond the lusty tension of moderate foreplay. When things get too heated, Lucius dismisses himself and acts very much like he’s frantically going to be sick. Sometimes, it’s alarming. Almost always, he has one of his fits. Frustratingly enough, he can’t explain himself, won’t explain himself, admits that he can’t explain himself and that he’s very very sorry, and the mood is spoiled between them for the rest of the night, if not into the next morning. It vexes Raven. Most of the time, he lets him go without much resistance. He loves him too much to ever force himself upon him. Whatever his reasons are, Raven can only guess, and he has a few hypotheses as to why Lucius is so reluctant to have sex. On sacred grounds? Out of embarrassment or fear? But he can’t deny that Lucius’s sudden bouts of frigidity make the insecure part of him question the degree to which he finds him attractive. And he aches for him more than words can describe.

That said, he’ll take what he can get, even if it means taking care of the rest himself. 

He kisses him into the bed. His hands roam to his hips, glide up his waist. He loves the subtle curves and can’t resist feeling them up and down. Lucius gets taken undertow by the heady rush of Raven atop him, the warm taste of ale on his mouth and how his strong hands feel as though they are broad enough to engulf his slender frame. Soon, though, Lucius presses his palm against his face to break their kiss with a gasp. They seek one another with starstruck lust.

“You were stealing my breath from me,” confesses Lucius with a smile on his voice. He thumbs the shape of his ear affectionately.

Raven barely hears him; he’s too entranced by how stunning Lucius looks right now with his rosy cheeks, warm expression, and how his silky blond hair falls all around his head like a nimbus. His head is swimming in drink-addled desire so deep he can’t be assed to care about embarrassing himself.

“It sounds like you still have more left to take.”

At the thought, Lucius sighs deeply, as though in preparation. He finds himself at odds, a crossroad of feelings that contradict each other. Raven doesn’t waste any time and cranes in to kiss his jawline, nudge closer to his neck and ear where drinking in his saturated scent is intoxicating, and drapes more of his weight across his chest. He pulls him in tight and close as he gets lost in nettling thoughts about Sebastian, that drunkard at the bar, the bandits and their spoken schemes of kidnapping instead of killing, and anyone else who has coveted his lover in the capacity he is enjoying him now. He battles that fury with the supreme satisfaction of securing him in his arms and tasting him and straddling him, of _possessing_ him, how nobody else could possibly get to him, not when he’s locking their bodies together this way. Lucius starts to mewl and shift and Raven likes it a lot.

He wouldn’t like it if he knew why.

“Raven…” utters Lucius, just to remind himself who’s on top of him.

“You’re perfect,” mutters Raven. He goes for his lips again and works into frenzy. His mind swirls into an ecstatic abyss and he squeezes hard, maybe just a little too much, before he lets up in order to go for his neck so he may undo his collar. “And you’re mine,” he pants, then mashes their mouths together once again.

“Mmphm,” is all Lucius can really say now.

Lucius’s mind swirls into a kind of abyss, but he wouldn’t be able to call it ecstatic. It’s really just an abyss: dark, deep, chilling, chilling enough to go numb. He feels paralyzed by Raven’s weight, his hands on his neck and his state of dress peeling away. The draft between them manifests the freeze of his mind to someplace much more physical and real. He tries to move again but arms much bigger than his go around his, and he’s no longer straddling him. He feels the dazzling gravity of an arousal pressing into him between clothes, and that’s when the paralysis shatters and he starts to panic.

 _No_ , he wants to say but moans against the barrier of a mouth on his instead. It’s warm, moist, unpleasant and invasive, and when a tongue slithers inside a part of him dies. The bed feels so much harder, as though there’s not much separating it from the hard floor, a floor he had grown used to sleeping near when he lived in the orphanage, and he feels so much smaller than the man crushing into him. He tries to think of anything but it, tries to fly away from the prison of his body into the safe and nurturing embrace of Saint Elimine herself, or how he would imagine it must feel. It reminds him of his mom, or at least the faraway memory of her, when she held onto him in her sickbed as the recollection of the hateful man with the dagger overwhelmed him. It lends him some strength, or at least enough to numb himself all over again and ignore all the intrusions that threaten to pierce past his skin and violate his very being.

“You’re all mine now,” a distant voice whispers hungrily. Lucius goes purely visceral.

“No!” he shrieks with a violent jerk and a kick. The weight lets off. He braces for the blow, blocking his face with his arms now that he’s regained control of them.

Raven gawks at him, stupefied and stricken all at once. He studies the man cowering beneath him as though he’s trying to hurt him rather than love him. It makes him livid before he can think.

“What do you mean, ‘no’?” he demands, rising to his haunches. Lucius scrambles to get out from underneath him completely, grabbing at his opened garments to close them. He stares at Raven like he’s a terror from another dimension as he backs into the corner of the bed to make himself as small as possible. Raven despises it. It hurts him to be regarded like a monster by the one he trusts most. In his whiplash mood his thinking distorts into something more accusatory, something that stems from the pain in his heart and his loathing of the men who court Lucius, how the monk treats them with such unwarranted grace. “Why don’t you want this, exactly? Why don’t you want _me_?”

Lucius shakes his head rapidly. He wracks his brain for a way to express his feelings, but there’s nothing save an indistinct, screaming void. Raven watches him tremble in the face of him and narrows his eyes.

“So you think I’m scary, then. What, because I’m mad? Am I a threat to you?”

“N-N-No…”

“Then what is it? Why do you always spurn me this way? You never explain yourself, you just… go cold on me and excuse yourself! That’s how it always goes. Don’t you think I have a right to know _why_?”

“Of… Of course!” Tears squeeze out from his eyes. “I-I just… it’s not you, heavens no, it’s, it’s… it’s all me…”

Raven snorts. “I can’t believe you’re using THAT tripe on me.” He scoots off the bed and onto his feet. “You know what? I think I’m starting to get it. It’s all making sense now.” Lucius gapes at him in bewilderment and fear as he starts pacing about the room in senseless rounds. “Maybe you really _do_ miss serving a house that isn’t all but burnt to the ground.”

“What?”

“House Khathelet is clearly wanting of a good, kindhearted, _devoted_ vassal, and,” he picks up the healing staff, “the heir is generous enough to provide the means to a life well spent healing others.”

“D-Don’t be absurd…!” It’s Lucius’s turn to stand.

He taps at the orb and sneers at Lucius. “Struck a chord now, didn’t I?”

“It’s not that! You’re way off the mark— I would never want that!”

Raven tosses the Physic at Lucius, who reflexively catches it, then storms toward the door, sheathes his blade, and turns the knob. Frantic, Lucius ducks for his boot and tries hastily to force his bandaged foot inside, flinching at the pain but not deterred in the slightest by it. “Wait, my lord!”

“No, you wait! Stay put right here. I need to go cool down.”

The monk’s heart pounds in his ears. “Lord Ray- Raven! Don’t leave me! Please! I can explain!” By then, the door had closed behind the dark-haired mercenary, leaving Lucius staggering behind with his boot halfway done. He pries it back open and calls after him.

“At least let me accompany you!” he yells, hurrying after him. Raven swerves, quickening his pace and walking halfway backwards.

“And let you worsen your injury? Hell no! Do yourself a favor: stay behind and rest! I need to be alone awhile!”

“B-But I…!” It feels as though his spirit is slowly being trampled. “Lord Raven!” He hobbles after him, trips over his own toe, and tries to rescue his balance with the staff but fails; in consequence, he collapses to his knees in the hall. He watches Raven go with a quivering lip. His parting words are desperate and petulant, almost like an emphatic, finalizing _so there!_

“I _love_ you!” 

Raven elbows past a meager, sooty child as he turns the corner. Startled, the boy lurches and runs palms-first into the wall. Broken, Lucius crumples and buries his face in one hand, knuckles going white over the handle of his staff and the pain of his leg shooting up his nerves, making it all the easier to break down into pitiful, wailing sobs. He chastises himself for being so weak, weak enough to hurt Raven, and too weak to regain his composure at a time he’d prefer to avoid upsetting a child with this wretched spectacle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALSO
> 
> i know what you're thinking and judge me for my crime with all the legal clout you have but i am NOT ASHAMED of that badly misplaced FE: Heroes joke because it just presented itself sluttily to me and at that point i had no choice but to cringe and take it because i am an ugly pun hussy
> 
> why is being serious SO HARD


	3. Lightfall

His world must collapse in on itself before he can address the one outside of it. For a moment, he only heeds his own wails, muffled by the palm of his hand and his tenuous grasp on self-control. Once he purges a small series of pitiful vocalizations, he’s no longer too waterlogged to hear the child’s approach.

“Um… sir?”

He falters, reluctant to reveal his tear-stained face, but gathers his bearings and twists his wrist to wipe the excess with his sleeve, sniffling. He blinks away his blurry vision to better regard the young stranger and his concerned, somewhat tentative curiosity. Lucius’s own curiosity has been prodded. It’s always a surprising pleasure when one recognizes his true gender, and he would never have expected him to see past his feminine countenance while succumbing to an emotional outpour society attributes more to women. The boy points at his staff and directs a meaningful look toward him. Lucius tries to interpret this.

“Yes, child?”

“Can you use that?”

“Hm? This?” He wraps his other hand around it and takes it closer to his lap. The boy’s head bobs up and down with urgent affirmation. All of Lucius’s own troubles begin to part way for whatever plight the child must have. “Why do you ask? Are you hurt?”

He shakes his head with the same tight-lipped urgency. Lucius uses his staff like a crutch against the floorboard to rise to his feet with as little pain as manageable. The kid is scarcely half his height; he’s so little and unkempt that the monk suspects he has no one to care for him, much less a home to return to, and his heart goes out to him immediately.

“Then… is it someone else?”

“Mm-hmm.” He tugs at the corner of his cape. “No time! Please hurry!”

Lucius tails after him straight away. Hurrying hurts, but he musters his best efforts, glad that he can rely on the staff as a walking aid. The scamp keeps whirling around when he’s not fast enough and beckons him forth, down the end of the hall, to the creaky, sagging stairs, through the boisterous but dwindling crowd of revelers, and at the inn’s entrance he finally seizes his free wrist and spurs him to keep up. Lucius all but trips, crying out softly at his precarious balance. 

Streets are sparsely populated beneath the cloudy evening’s dusky cloak, and their clacking, uneven footsteps reverberate in the comparative quiet. Firelight and laughter dwindle the further they progress. Lucius begins to wonder with his aching foot how far away and in what alley the crisis must be in when the boy stops before what appears to Lucius a mounted watchman. The child blows a two-fingered whistle to the shrouded figure and waves with enough gusto that his heels achieve liftoff.

“Over here, over here!”

The rider pulls the reins and the horse’s dusky silhouette tosses its shaggy head back as it redirects its position to trot toward the ambulatory travelers. The lantern in his gloved fist does little to clarify his features, but Lucius takes note of a youthful complexion and a dusting of freckles. His mind is preoccupied by what the child’s purpose in summoning him was until it quickly makes sense.

The nightwatch clears his throat. “What seems to be the trouble, folks?”

“We need a ride!” the boy pleads. “He can’t walk very well, and my friend is very hurt and I need him to be healed before it’s too late! Please, sir, _please_!”

He cradles his chin for a heavy moment. Then, he removes one foot from his stirrup and dismounts. “If a life hangs in the balance, well… I can lend you my hooves.”

Push never once comes to shove. Gladdened by the man’s swift resolve to trouble himself with saving the life of a stranger, Lucius brims with a smile. “Oh, bless you, kind sir! Thank you for taking time out of your duties to help us on our mission. Saint Elimine gazes upon such benevolence with favor.”

“Duties? Erm… yes. It’s no trouble. Now get on." The watchman gestures for Lucius be helped up onto the saddle. The stray child is lifted next, followed by the rider, who sandwiches the kid’s mangy frame between him and the monk. He guides the horse into a gentle pivot and kicks it into a full-bodied run. Lucius reinforces his hold on their helper’s cloak, shelters the child with his outstretched arms, and braces for the oncoming rush of nippy wind that sieves through his scalp and bids his eyes to crinkle. It’s been a while since the last time he’s been in a saddle, especially at a rigorous gallop, and he is too concerned with keeping himself and the child on board before he realizes his undone boot had fallen off. Mentally he curses himself, but the loss wasn’t vital enough to forsake any more critical seconds. 

It strikes Lucius as a bit odd after no words are exchanged between anyone, particularly pertaining to information about their pending destination. If the child isn’t concerned, he reasons, then perhaps the night guard is headed the right way on coincidence; they’re galloping a straight course down the thoroughfare, after all, and in the direction they were originally headed. But when silence continues to prevail for longer than a minute, Lucius can’t help but raise his question.

“Do you know where we’re going, exactly? We’re almost out of town, and...”

After a beat, the boy pipes up. “That’s because that’s where we’re going!”

“Oh. Is it far?” 

“A little…”

It really is a good thing they chanced across this young man and his horse, then, he supposes; they can’t afford to delay, and the jostling of his leg on horseback is a trifling amount of stress on his leg compared to shambling this unspecified but increasingly lengthy distance. For the first time since he departed, his mind wanders back to Raven with a sick squeeze in his chest when he remembers their heated spat and the tumult of intense emotions rocking within him, and the longer they ride, the more he dreads how worked up Raven will be when he comes back. The scent of the night air grows crisper. Dark strands of forest cross his jaunty vision, the expansive shrub-pocked knolls leading up to them scantily illuminated by veiled moonlight. He wonders if he will even make it back by daybreak. 

The smallest passenger doles out the occasional order for the rider, but most of it is encouragement to ‘keep going this way’. They pass by a humble village and still do not stop. Lucius marvels at how far the boy must have traveled to find a healer until he hits upon the fretful realization that it must have taken a considerable chunk of his afternoon just to get there, and that by now the condition of his friend must be more critical than before, if they even have a treatable condition left to speak of. Why, by now, the castle is even within reach! Lucius’s head starts to spin.

“Y-You came all this way?” he asks.

“I… I have to do what I can,” is his solemn reply. He fidgets with his rags and his belt amid the cadenced, thundering tremors of hoofbeats.

The thought alone is like plunging a dagger into Lucius’s compassionate heart. “Your poor thing. And nobody helped you until me?”

The boy nods. Lucius can feel that he must be biting back some of his feelings, perhaps in an attempt to remain strong for his ailing companion. The castle grows ever nearer, more imposing than the mountains that mob it, and the boy twists in his seat to gaze up at Lucius. It’s difficult to discern his face in the shadows, but his eyes catch the moon and reflect sorrow.

“I… was desperate.”

“My child…”

“Forgive me, Father.” Pending tears gorge his voice as he swivels more fully in the saddle and stretches his arms around Lucius to cling to him. It catches the monk off guard, both the suddenness of it and why he felt the need to ask forgiveness from him, but so consumed by the child’s dilemma as he is he yearns to comfort him as best as he knows how. He returns the hug with half of his body, the other side preoccupied with holding on. He sorts through lines of encouragement he might confer, but before he can settle on any of them, a sharp pain collides with the back of his head and his world goes brutally black.

  


* * *

  


Light seeps into his vision slow as sunrise but dim as night. Lucius is only aware that he is aware, but sensations soon follow: the swimming murk of his mind, the dull ache throbbing behind his skull, a cool dampness propping it up. He’s in a dusky place, lying on a softness he determines is a bed. The sheets are some of the plushest he’s touched in a while. Weight shifts the mattress just next to him, and that’s where his returning sights alight. The silhouette isn’t a familiar one, but when his senses start to stack, his thick, sideswept bangs cast pine-colored in the shadows do remind him of someone he met earlier. When his smooth, sonorous voice tickles his eardrum, he pieces his identity together immediately.

“I see you’ve come to. I’m relieved.”

The gaps splitting his memory are all the more obvious to him right now, and they make him jolt upright in a disoriented panic. Gasping, Lucius eyes his surroundings warily. Even when his faculties have improved, the lighting situation muffles shapes and colors; there is a crackling hearth on the opposite side of the room and a chandelier with only six candles dangling from the ceiling. House Khathelet’s seal lords over the fire. It’s extravagant and cozy and distantly familiar but all at once not at all; he glimpses sitting chairs and a table set with steaming tea, a sumptuous silk rug sprawled on the floor beneath it. The bed he sits on has tall posts and burgundy curtains tucked at the corners. Castle Khathelet. He has precious little time to rack his brain before Sebastian pushes him back down onto the pillow with a gently firm hand against his shoulder. Lucius gazes at him with eyes full of mystification and a mouth that yearns to speak. Sebastian does that for him.

“Shh, shh shh… Slow down. You’ll hurt yourself worse getting worked up like that.”

His tongue scrapes dryly against his mouth. “Where… How did I...?”

“You’re with me, now. A man on his horse and a child were agonizing over your welfare, and I chanced upon the situation to find you unconscious. That’s when I took matters into my own hands and gave you a warm, safe place to recover for the night.” He adjusts his clasped hair over the side of his shoulder with a flourish and a grin. “What a stroke of luck and a twist of fate, wouldn’t you agree? That I should find you here of all places.” He laughs with some endearment through his nose. “It must be providence! I’d almost suspect you were seeking our reunion all along.”

Lucius tries lifting his body up a second time only to be met with the same resistance as before. “Oh no!” he cries, fraught with palpable distress. “The boy! He desperately needed me!”

“Oh, yes; we crossed paths when I found you. He did mention that he needed a healer to attend to his friend somewhere. Fear not for him. I provided him with that support, seeing as you were regretfully out of commission.”

The monk’s eyes drift to the ceiling as he dips into a quick spell of necessary contemplation. A lot has happened over the course of the night, and to top it all off, he never expected to find himself in the bedchamber of the very same noble who stirred so much grief into his relationship with Raven! He feels as though he’s leaving a lot undone. It’s a headache to think of in the most literal manner.

“That’s… a relief.” He’s disconnected with his words.

“I pity you.” Sebastian invites himself to brush a stray bang into place on Lucius’s face, which reels his eyes down to earth and toward Sebastian warily. “You shouldn’t have gone through all that trouble, not when you yourself are injured.”

“No one else would help him,” he protests. “If he never found me, he might still be seeking aid. Have you any idea how far he needed to travel?”

“It’s a fair distance, yes.”

“Besides… I’m very accustomed to offering my support encumbered by injuries far graver than a sprained ankle and a few nicks and bruises.”

He sighs, tilting his head and oozing sentimental warmth. “Such a selfless heart… You truly are a monk of Saint Elimine.”

“I’m only doing the right thing… Nothing more.”

“Ahh, but the fact that you say that only makes you that much more so. Your humble devotion to charity fills me with admiration.”

“Um… I’m… glad to set such an example, then,” fumbles Lucius for a response, sheepish and disconcerted. 

Sebastian sets aside a thoughtful pause with his nose turned toward the fireplace, and the sheen in his dark eyes dances. He shakes his head and points it toward the floor. “It’s such a waste.”

Given no elaboration, Lucius prods him to continue. “…Hm?”

“A noble servant of the divine, left to trace the footsteps of the Lycian League’s disgraced Cornwell’s successor. He may have been somebody of some importance before, but he’s a mere shadow of that now, a hopeless vagabond wandering into obscurity." He swerves to face Lucius. "I ask in earnest: why subject yourself to such an unforgiving lifestyle? Following him around like this, what sorts of good works do you hope to achieve if you’re merely scraping by? I know how you monks are, but... Don’t you think there ought to be a better way to serve others? A better... position?”

“Well… I have always pledged my loyalty to House Cornwell. They took me in when I had nothing but despair, and for that, I owe them my life, but… it goes beyond that obligation now. Lord Raven is my most cherished friend— rather, he is like family. Wherever he is, my home is, and I will continue to travel alongside him, doing my duties wherever I may go.”

Sebastian’s face has fallen flat as compressed dirt. “You really are attached to him.”

“Tremendously.” Lucius’s frown turns in agitation. “And he will be worried half to death in my absence. I never got the opportunity to tell him where I was going, or that I was going in the first place, for that matter…”

“Oh dear. That is worrisome.”

“Enough to twist me up inside.” The acolyte sits up for the third time, successful but putting Sebastian on guard. He eyes the arched window, a portal into blackness, and the thick oak door next. “Oh, you must understand. Your kind succor is deeply appreciated, Lord Sebastian, but I really must be off.”

He ejects a clipped, forceful chuckle, then twists his body toward his guest and folds his leg on the bed. “Outrageous!” He places a hand on his back. Lucius flinches. “You couldn’t leave if you wanted to. Do you really expect to hobble all that way back? I couldn’t in good conscience allow it without first calling myself a barbarian.”

Lucius’s brow wrinkles in anguish. “B-But if I don’t, he’ll… There’s no telling how he’ll… what lengths he will go to in order to find me. He has no idea, you see, and he might jump to dire conclusions…”

“Lie down, my dear,” consoles Sebastian, placing his other palm across his chest to guide him. Lucius permits him at first, but offers staunch resistance once his will reignites. To bargain, he takes the lordling’s hand in both of his and fixes his pleading gaze upon him eye for eye.

“I hate to ask this of you, especially someone of your standing, but… would it be possible to provide me an escort? I’ve gold and everything, just…”

Sebastian’s mouth twitches, and he heaves a deep breath. “I’m afraid I cannot. I’ve troubled my Lord Father enough with the whole Winglaine fiasco and the preparations made for some lowborn child, so I’m not really in a position to… extend beyond my reach with him. And besides, I just paid you! It makes no sense to compensate _me_! Think about it.”

Lucius shakes his head, his trailing blond strands curtaining his face. “I don’t know what else to do, I’m… I’m desperate,” he falters on scarce breath.

“And you’re decidedly in no condition to travel.” Sebastian props the back of his hand against his forehead. “You’re running a fever.” He can’t resist flipping it around to trail his fingertips across his skin as he takes it back, and his eyes take on a cast of fascinated warmth. “Stay with me.”

“But Lord Raymond…”

The heir clenches his teeth but releases some tension in order to contend with him. “If that brute truly cares about you, he will wait on you. He will wait a week, a month, a year just to ensure your return. He might just wait forever.” He smiles, but quickly swaps it for a pointed questioning look. “Unless… you have your doubts?”

Lucius wishes his response were prompter. “…No. Nonetheless, I can’t bear the thought of inflicting such worry upon him.”

It’s not just about his worry anymore; their quarrel winded down peculiar paths into unfounded accusations that Lucius would rather take on Sebastian’s offer and abandon Raven for a luxurious life with him. It shocked him that he would suggest that, even offended him that he thought so little of his fidelity. Knowing Raven, he must have been blowing things out of proportion in his lingering umbrage and, once he cooled down, would let rationale guide his heart back to him. But if Lucius arrives accompanied by Marquess Khathelet’s son… What a horrid thought! He would have real substance with which to base those false allegations. Oh, they would still be false, but it would be like untangling jungles to make him understand the truth and what an outlandish coincidence all of this is. It would devastate the monk for a while. Raven doesn’t let offenses go so easily. Merely contemplating the stress of this potential estrangement clamps his chest and hastens his heartbeat.

“I’m sure he’s lost sleep over graver matters,” dismisses Sebastian with a wave of his hand. “He can handle a night without his partner.” He rises from the bed and saunters over to the round table in the center of the room, his shadow stretching and morphing in the flickering light. “And I’m sure he would agree that you need rest for the night before you foolishly bring more harm upon yourself.”

Finding no space for disagreement, Lucius endures the queasy toss in his stomach. “You’re right, my lord.”

Sebastian selects a teacup from the tidy arrangement of tableware and pours the steaming liquid from the pot into it. “So accept my hospitality with the appreciative heart it deserves. Stay awhile and keep me quality company. I’ve even brewed you some medicinal tea from the finest herbs in our garden. It will definitely help you relax and take your mind off things. You have no right to refuse,” he says with a finalizing but congenial tone. 

Lucius swallows back his complaints. “Th-thank you.”

He comes back over and reclaims his previous perch, carefully offering Lucius the cup on a saucer once he sits back up. Sebastian adjusts the pillows behind the monk to maximize his comfort, which Lucius thanks him for a second time and sidles up against the lumpy mound. He blows on his tea and tries to ignore his creeping insecurities, particularly when his savior of the hour draws near. Even so much as his eyes resting upon him is enough to make his flesh prickle.

“You know… I did mean it. What I said earlier today.”

Lucius eyes him from the corner of his vision. “What?”

“That I would give almost anything to have a vassal as kindhearted and devoted as you.”

The monk wishes his tea weren’t too hot to drink so he could cure the dryness in his throat with a sip. He parts his lips for lack of anything to say at first, then closes it and lets his sights fall to his lap. “…That’s a nice sentiment, my lord, but… I already have someone I belong to.”

The noble scoffs, gaze sharpening. “He isn’t even a proper lord, and he hasn’t been for years. What could he have to offer that I don’t?”

_By the heavens; he’s really serious,_ dreads Lucius. Sebastian’s insistence and the darkening of his presence hovering over him like a stormcloud portends how much of his feelings are invested in claiming Lucius as a part of his royal house. Men in power are scourges to defy. He fears whatever answer he provides will be the wrong one. “…The simple matter of it is that… you are not him. Even if all he could give me were his companionship alone, I would still never leave his side.”

“Not even for a comfortable future? If it’s companionship you want, say no more.” He scoots closer, practically against the pile of pillows, side by side and vying for his eye contact, which he receives. “I would see to it that you are always clothed well, fed well, housed well, and, as you are presently so obviously at a lack of, treated well.” He reaches out to touch his head, but Lucius ducks out of the way.

“Um, that’s… kind of you, but… I’m afraid I must continue to decline.”

Sebastian presses his lips together in a thin, tight line as his hand settles empty against the sheets. “I see.” Then, the life flashes back into his eyes. “…I know where I’m going wrong about this. In merely the span of a day I have come to understand what kind of a self-sacrificing person you are.” He shakes his head with a tut. “How senseless of me to pitch creature comforts to a monk like you! You saw it yourself: there are children like that urchin who pleaded for your help everywhere in this territory. They eke out an existence all across Lycia, and I daresay the rest of the continent has its fair share of young, lonely wretches all the same. But… how about this? I would be honored to have you serve me. Then I will see to it that when I ascend into my birthright, my rule will be a tremendous boon for the church of St. Elimine, and I will become an unstinting benefactor for the almshouses and orphanages in all of Khathelet if it would mean you’d pledge your loyalty to me and my house. All of this would be your doing.”

Lucius swallows what feels like a stone. “No, it would be yours.” And when the lordling cinches his slender eyebrows, Lucius regrets his reply. “I’m-“

“ _No_ , it would be _yours_.” He tumbles off the bed again with a swish of his cape and his feathery, neck-length hair. When he faces him again, he crosses his arms and scowls. “You would serve as my inspiration for the deeds, my guiding light, and without you, where would my impetus be?”

The china rattles a bit in his hands. Lucius considers withholding his reply, but he is so disappointed in Sebastian’s duplicitous pettiness that he lets him have the truth. “I s-suppose it would be found in the natural goodwill of your heart.”

Sebastian’s expression twists in bitterness. “I’m not accustomed to being defied. If I can’t have you, I won’t do it. That’s all you need to understand.” He traipses across the room, heels of his stride rapping with a resounding beat against the wood. In a more tempered tone he adds, “Drink your tea and find some rest. I implore you to consider what my offer can do for you.”

“…Yes, Lord Sebastian.”

The young lord disappears behind the echo of timber. At last, Lucius compresses into the pillows like he couldn’t before. He never noticed how taut he had gotten. Sebastian is right; he should do some considering, but not about his offer. The only temptation is the possibility of improving the lives of the neediest on a grand scale if he could fully submit his trust to the bargain’s fulfillment, but that would involve the loss and betrayal of someone dear to him. He can’t believe himself for regretting to lend his help in the first place; if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t be in this fix. Instead, he sinks back into troubled thoughts about Raven again, desperate to return to his side. He sips his tea, breathes in the curiously pungent aroma, and fantasizes about different escape methods that get more and more whimsical the more his head swims.


	4. Shrouded

The further his evening stroll takes him, the closer his thoughts lurch back to the man he left behind. 

Getting the blood pumping through his legs takes care of one annoying problem, at least. The cool air whisking past his face is sobering, too, a breath of fresh air for a vexed mind. Physically distancing himself from the situation untangles his snarled thoughts but doesn’t make him feel any less unpleasant.

Three words ring in his skull like a lost voice bouncing off cavern walls. 

_I love you!_

With each tromp of his boots against creaky wood then slick stone then frost-caked dirt, samples of his own words echo back. _What do you mean ‘no’? I can’t believe you’re using THAT tripe on me. Struck a chord now, didn’t I?_ The more they plague him, the more regret plunges into his chest like a stake. What a damned fool he was being. He loves him. Of course he loves him. 

At the time, his feelings were wounded by rejection and exacerbated by earlier events. None were Lucius’s fault to begin with. He said so himself, didn’t he? His judgment had been so clouded that he didn’t stop to consider how much more pain Lucius must have been in than he and his trivial, jealous, and lusty frustrations. And now he’s probably blaming himself for Raven’s backlash. The sight of him crumpled to the floor haunts him. Just how long would he stay that way, he wonders?

He should really go back. Ten minutes is long enough.

Raven retraces his steps back to the inn, drilling himself for the apologies he could give, the support he owes, the things he’d like to take back. The thorny ugliness of his feelings have been poking holes in Lucius all day, and merely applying a bandage over his leg isn’t going to fix those. He climbs the steps, passes through the empty hallway they parted in, and finds their door hanging open. Frowning at it, he pushes it the rest of the way to get inside.

“Lucius?” 

The sheets are still wrinkled from the wake of their bodies. Their sparse belongings, accounted by the entrance untouched. His companion, nowhere to be seen nor heard. Raven sighs deeply and sharply through his nose, batting away his augmenting worries with a show of irritation. 

“I told you to wait. You’re bad at listening sometimes, you know that?” He surveys the confines of their small quarters one last time before giving up and leaving, closing the door behind him.

“You couldn’t even shut the door before you left?” he mutters on his way back to the bottom floor. “Guess you don’t mind inviting thieves in.” _Almost as though you LIKE being taken advantage of,_ he thinks bitterly and with an increasing heart rate, but withholds saying because that’s exactly the type of attitude he intends to apologize for. Raven scans the dim, dynamic figures in the tavern for flowing blond or sweeping robes. A guest stumbles along in groggy disorientation and catches both her fall and Raven’s sharp eye, but he loses interest just as quickly when he attributes her off-kilter shamble to liquor's touch and not his companion's injury. His gaze roves over the same guests several times over and each time is more maddening than the last; he immerses himself in the contained chaos of dinnertime reverie if only to ensure a thorough check but finds nobody who even comes close to Lucius. Clenching his knuckles and releasing them, he calls his name once, twice louder, and gets nothing but a nuisance in response.

“You called?” A woman with half-lidded eyes tugs at his ragged coattails and looks up at him with flushed intrigue. He jerks away from her and regards her with one of his patented glowers.

“Not for you, I didn’t. You’re not the one I’m looking for.” Her consorts holler and whoop and smack their fists into tables and playing cards and silverware in their uproarious amusement, giving the stables next door a run for their animals.

She pouts just a little. “I coulda sworn I heard you call for little ol’ Lucy.”

His scowl deepens. “LuciUS. Did it ever occur to you that I don’t even know you?”

“Harsh words for a sweet lady,” the man across from her remarks. “You must be popular with women.”

“Maybe you _should_ get to know me?” she quips with a sly grin.

“I don’t have time for this!” cries Raven in exasperation. “Look, have any of you seen a monk passing through here?”

The man next to the man across from Lucy jabs a thumb back toward a nondescript monk cutting into potatoes with a fork soberly by the far window. Raven rolls his entire head alongside the force of his eyes.

“Not that one. I mean… a monk with long blond hair.”

“Long blond hair…” The first man scratches at the side of his mustache and quietly burps when he hits upon a recollection. “I saw a beautiful woman with long blond hair, but probably not a monk. She was limping through here on a bad leg and before y’know it, she was gone.”

Raven smacks his palm against his forehead and drags it down his face. “That IS the monk.” His body is already firing up to track his stupid, persistent boyfriend down outside. “How long ago?”

“Ehh… I lost my sense of time somewhere in my rum.” His pals sure get a good guffaw out of that remark. Raven’s not in the mood and he never would be.

“Whatever; I’m outta here.” Without thanking him for the information, he hustles for the exit and reunites with the soothing night air, oblivious to their good-natured bellyaching. His mind is a narrow tunnel and he’s digging straight for Lucius. It’s one thing to envision him roaming the dark streets alone, but so much worse when his walking is impaired. That means his running will be, too, and if he ever has to… well, he doesn’t want to think on it too hard.

He probably went foolishly looking for him, expects Raven. Lucius has quite the stubborn streak for possessing such a gentle personality. He’d been morbidly distraught over his need for space and felt strongly about making amends the right way. Raven both curses and absolves his partner of his rash mistake because, although he explicitly told him not to follow, he can see why his departure would leave him strangled and desperate for resolution. For crying out loud, he even promised to explain his frightened reactions for him, but did he pay attention? Soon as he finds him, Raven intends to take him up on that offer. The longer he searches the streets, however, the more he wishes he had overcome his impetuous heat and listened to his explanation instead of storming out to lick his wounds. 

“Lucius!” His throat is getting hoarser by the minute. “Lucius, answer me! I’m ready to talk! …Lucius!”

The dark alleys don’t reply.

“I swear to all the gods and St. Elimine herself: if you’re hiding out of petty spite, I’m…” He stumbles over just what kind of penance would suit a childish stunt like that, but he’s too focused on finding him safe and sound to come up with a clever rebuke. “Just, answer me, will you?”

The shape of a head popping out from the second story of a window is the only sign of life. It retreats. A gale of wind whispers by, blowing hay and debris along the stony ground. Raven snaps his head around, then in another direction, forces air through his teeth, and presses on in a path he swears he already took. It feels as though he’s eating his pulse for a second dinner, but it just won’t go down.

“I’m not playing games! I’m not known for being quiet, either, so I _know_ you can probably hear me out here by now! I’ll wake up the whole town if it means you’ll show up!”

This is getting ridiculous, he thinks, and runs into the hope that he really is being childish enough to drag this out on purpose just to prolong his agony. It would be much better than any of the alternatives that pop into his head.

“Come on, Lucius!” he continues to call on his winding journey. “I get it; I was a jerk to you. And you know what I am? Sorry! I’m sorry, okay? So would you please just limp on back over here and spare me the grief?”

“Oh, shaddup already!” a distant, crotchety voice complains. Raven imagines kicking a rock into that shrill orifice and breaking whatever teeth he must have left, but it’s a fleeting fancy and he sounds too far away to give the time of night. Lucius isn’t the one who replies, and that bothers him more than anything else.

“Lucius!”

Nobody.

“Lucius! Curse it all! Lucius, where did you go?”

He’s nowhere. Raven stops to listen past the solid claps of his footsteps. He continues to be nowhere. There isn’t even a sign of him. Raven bites his lip and stares arrows straight ahead of him.

“Damn it!” He cuffs his own thigh. “Just be somewhere, okay?!”

The virtual silence is like listening to the rage of a battlefield to him. He breaks into a run. Time is too precious now. His absence is suspicious. He decides to head further up the main road. Just when he considers the practicality of checking back at the inn, Raven finds a misshapen lump on the road. At first, he dismisses it as a dead animal or some street trash. Passing by, he discovers it’s a boot. One boot. Something about it calls to him. He stoops to pick it up. The shape of the toe, the length rising just past ankle height, a buckle strap but no laces… He’s held this boot before. In fact, it was the last boot he held. He clasps it in his fist and fixes his eyes dead ahead of him.

He finally has a sign of him, but that’s all that’s left: a sign. He must have passed through this part of town. A few things about this revelation are troubling. One, he ventured this far away from the inn. Two, he disregarded his footwear entirely and is hobbling around with nothing but bandages protecting his hurt foot from the wintry elements. Three, that’s an unnatural move, unless his situation was so dire that he couldn’t afford the simple act of scooping it back up. An edge of palpable anxiety worms its way into his tone.

“Lucius!!”

He feels trapped in a dizzying labyrinth where his mind keeps bumping into all breeds of horrific and distressingly plausible scenes: a miscreant finds Lucius an easy target to pursue for coin, belongings, or worse, and the incapacitated monk leaves his boot behind in his scramble to flee; the sharp wail Lucius makes when he’s accosted; the monk lying in the streets somewhere mangled and divested; his captor making off with what he thinks is a gorgeous woman to sell him off; this same trafficker reaping a sample of his human bounty with wandering, lecherous hands; outrage upon the discovery that he hasn’t bagged a ripe young woman at all; disgusted but turned on, the rogue has his way with him anyway just to satisfy his various frustrations; Lucius’s blood being spilled and the life draining from his eyes. Some of it plays in sequences, others separate and unrelated incidences but all involving the violation of or violence of the person most precious to him, and Raven sees both a sickly green and an angry red in one pulse of his staggering mind. He’s giving chase before he even commands his legs to run.

He’s not sure whose blood he’s out for or where he’ll find them, but the determination to deliver Lucius from horror propels the mercenary on a steadfast hunt through the dark hours.


	5. With Hands Bound Impaired

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning in advance that this chapter contains racy and sensitive content: physical abuse, emotional manipulation, drugging, sexual assault, and the implication of rape. The whole bag of fun! Not pretty. It might be pretty upsetty, though.
> 
> There was an upload error when I first posted this chapter, so apologies if you got the notif twice or whatever. So annoying!

Time is engulfed by the shroud of his visions, of wading through muddled suppositions. Sebastian’s preferred but foreboding absence leaves Lucius with the peace to sink deeper into thoughts, though he yearns for ones less dreadful. His heart doesn’t need to tell his mind twice that it had already been made up before deliberating on the choice he had been given. Body and soul, he pledged himself to Raven, and that’s where he longs to remain. 

Certainly not here, in any case. Raven had been right about the scion’s ulterior motives, and on some level, Lucius had always known there was something unruly buried beneath his cordial surface. The difference between him and his scowling partner, however, is what they seek in strangers: Lucius highlights all the goodness that person is made of, but Raven is more prone to cast cynicism on those attributes and narrows in on more unsavory aspects before anything else. This change had been particularly evident after the Cornwell tragedy years ago. As Lucius traces backwards through his interactions with Sebastian, he finds himself helplessly following Raven’s approach.

Sebastian provided him a warm, lavish shelter to recover in for the night. Magnanimous, yes, but his charitable intentions beg to be questioned. If he’s willing to offer benevolence to Lucius, why can’t he do so for the destitute children he offered to support only if Lucius offers himself in exchange? Isn’t it a little suspicious that he lost consciousness so close to the castle grounds? That the boy could properly identify his sex from the start and that he had to journey so far just to find aid? Why did he apologize like that?

Even when he strives to fend off such creeping suspicions, he can’t help but submit his better judgment to the conclusion that yet another lord has become smitten with him. The last time it happened feels so long ago, from the time he still belonged to an extant noble family. It had never reached anywhere close to the point of abduction, however; Raven had always shooed him off before anything could come of it. Well, Sebastian claims he had only been helping him in a time of need, but in light of the proposition he gave Lucius, it really sounds like he’s trying to communicate ‘stay with me or else’. The ‘or else’ isn’t a threat in the sense that Lucius stands to lose anything, but he would miss out on the chance to gain something for others. But if he did threaten him with harm, wouldn’t the illusion of compassion be shattered…?

His tea, while punchy, is flavorful and sedating. It nurses his headache and it’s over halfway gone. He brings the cup to his lips to finish but his hold on the handle slackens and he tips it over onto himself. Hissing, he places the empty cup onto the saucer onto the sheets, the dishes clacking together nervously in his languid haste. 

With remorse and discomfort, the monk rolls off the bed on a mission for napkins or rags or any appropriate makeshift material he could dab at it with, but his mobilization is cut short when he trips. Oh, curses: his lame leg! If only that were the sole cause of his fall. It feels like he’s trying to make a body four times his size move, and his fresh-found awkwardness startles him so much that he remains sprawled on the floorboards instead of getting to his feet. The low light spins. It’s all in his head.

“What in…”

Could it be? Had he really hit his head so hard, or was it something in the tea? In a twist of expectations Lucius is suddenly grateful the rest ended up on his clothes. He consoles his mounting nerves with a deep breath and holds his head steady with a hand. Being so incapacitated serves to strengthen the bars on this cage he calls a room. If an act so simple as walking seems like an even more daunting venture than just dealing with a limp, then how will he ever be able to grant his own freedom if necessary? Moreover, why hadn’t he allowed his suspicions to guide his thinking before he sipped? Had it been his stubborn hold on trusting in the good of someone whose compassion is suspect? Just because he wants him to be good won’t make it happen. He simply did not want to believe he had ill intentions and indulged in the hospitality.

He still doesn’t. He finds himself clinging to the tatters of hope that Sebastian will set him free without any further trouble, that these symptoms he’s experiencing are blamed on his fatigue, emotional stress, and the blow to his head. _I must banish my worries,_ he tells himself. _I must remain strong and patient. I cannot allow despair to feast upon my heart. Gracious and loving St. Elimine, please guide my efforts._ He dips into prayer and fortifies his staying power. Strangely enough, he wishes Sebastian would come back to prove his doubts wrong, as much as his presence frays at his sense of security. He shivers.

Abduction. Really, abduction? Please let that be a misconception.

The fireplace beguiles Lucius with the promise of warmth. He uses the bed to support himself in his endeavor to rise to full height, but it’s dizzy up there and the fear that he might topple furniture over in his wake is real. He takes a step, succeeds, another, and then another, lets go of the bed and stumbles before taking another clumsy spill onto the floor, palms-first. The impact surges through his arms. He winces, groans softly, and then settles with crawling the rest of the way. His struggle is rewarded with the heat he sought. Exhausted, he submits his entire body to gravity, lying on his side. The sputtering flames immolate his mind. It’s pleasant, if not short-lived.

Amid the gentle roar of the hearth, voices surface into his awareness. They drift in hazy, indistinct syllables for a while until Lucius snatches some sense from it.

“…glad I found a use for him.”

It’s Sebastian, he’s pretty sure. Could it be coming from beneath the floor? Resounding through corridors? In his disorientation Lucius can’t be sure, but he shuts his eyes and listens to the conversation greedily.

“Did you compensate him, or...?”

He swears he heard this voice before and his memory clambers for where and who.

“Shh! I would have this matter be dropped. What difference does it make? And lower your voice at once, you imbecile.”

“…Yes, milord.”

The chatter wanes to an indecipherable level, and Lucius hits upon a realization striking enough to fling his eyes open. The watchman! Could he be mistaken? Could his doubts have clouded his mind and adulterated his interpretation? He hopes so, for if it were to be true, then the implications would be incriminating. He’s the final puzzle piece that completes a horrifying picture, the sequence of events that might have ended in his capture at Castle Khathelet. _It's a fair distance, yes._ And how would he know!

If it's all true, though, then... Sebastian is worse than he thought.

His reflections are dispelled by the creak of door hinges, followed by the repetitive thud of footsteps. He already guesses the owner before he speaks. It plunges icicles into his chest. He lies still, not only enervated but reacting with the instinct of prey animals compelled to hide by remaining motionless. 

“And what are you doing all the way over there?” questions the green-haired noble with a hint of laughing disbelief. "Isn't the floor hard on you?"

“I… was cold,” he replies on a brittle voice.

“Oh, forgive me! What an oversight… You should have mentioned so earlier! I would have seen to it you were bundled up properly.”

“That’s alright… I hadn’t noticed back then.”

Sebastian unleashes a heavy sigh and makes his way over to the blond heap, bending down to touch his arm in an act of reassurance. “You really don’t look well. You shouldn’t be resting on the floor when you have a comfortable bed to lie on. In fact, I _command_ that you do so. …That was a joke, by the way.”

“Hm!” humors Lucius on a sharp, smiling sigh, closing his eyes again. He really doesn’t have the energy to engage him, though he spares what little effort he can muster just to be polite.

“I do mean it, though,” he contradicts. Without warning, Lucius finds himself hoisted from his spot by a hand wedged between his arm and torso, and he’s pulled upright so that he may lean against Sebastian’s kneeling form. The adrenaline from being manhandled injects a pulse of energy back into his system, but only enough to jerk his head to face the lordling with questioning alarm. The rest of him feels like jelly. Sebastian chuckles, amusement crinkling the sharp almonds of his eyes. 

“You look so frightened. I’m only helping you up.” His breath tickles his ear. It makes the monk shudder. His artifice starts to repulse him.

“You… pushed me down,” he mutters.

Sebastian’s eyes vanish into slits. “What? I don’t think I quite understand what you mean by that.”

“You provide me with both the problem and the solution,” clarifies Lucius, dread from the consequence of his ill-advised boldness threatening to burst his chest open. “The sickness, and then the cure.”

Each syllable is more measured than last time, but dipped in less confusion, more scrutiny and control, like he’s concerned with keeping his jaw from coming unhinged. “I still don’t understand what you mean by that.”

Lucius tugs at his tea-stained capelet, but only has the strength and coordination for his fingers to scrape a weak line down the front. “Then… allow me to provide you with a final answer to your offer from earlier: no. I cannot.”

Now he’s making a face like he should be more worried about his jaw getting locked together. His hands become desperate claws around his arms. “…Is there nothing I can do to change your mind? I've come to care about you so much; ever since we crossed paths, my mind has been utterly governed by thoughts of you and what a brilliant future we could start together, and I can't bear the thought of you leaving me so soon. If you go, you'll leave me here to dwell on your perilous lifestyle. Do you really want that for me? At least give me the chance to open your heart to me. It will take time, but rest assured you won't be disappointed.”

“My mind will not falter, and my heart won’t go, either,” he insists somberly.

Punctured by how resolute his reply was, Sebastian deflates. It takes him a short spell before he summons up a fresh design. “What of your body, then?”

“My… body?”

“If your heart can’t be persuaded, and your mind won’t budge, then I wonder… will your body reject me, too?”

The fireplace can’t do anything to protect Lucius from the deep chill that penetrates every corner of his psyche, enough to be felt searing his bones. It’s his turn to say, “I’m afraid I don’t… understand what you mean by that.” He can lie, too, though he wishes he told a pure truth.

Sebastian snorts. Then, he laughs. “Never you mind. Your naiveté is charming. However, I do intend to point out one very crucial fact. You’re not leaving tonight. Do you even feel capable of it?”

“I know,” he rues. He is then lifted up by the crooks of his knees and carried over to the end of the bed, where he hunches over like a masterless puppet. Sebastian leaves his side to peel the covers away from the arrangement of pillows, and shortly after heads for the table to pluck a napkin off it. Shaking his head, he returns to Lucius and dabs at the mess for him, but he’s too late: the soil is dried.

“You even made a mess of yourself,” notes Sebastian. “And the sheets. You really are out of sorts. But don’t worry. Messes can be cleaned up.” He pulls his cape up over his head and strips him free of it. It’s obvious to Lucius what he’s doing, and he can play innocent at his intentions, but his hunch guides him down much darker paths.

“Please don’t feel like you need to undress me. I am n-not so helpless…”

Sebastian doesn’t heed his plea. “Says the one I found sprawled helplessly by the fire, leg sprained, who couldn’t even muster the coordination to drink his tea.” He moves to the clasps on his collar next. “If you’re really not so helpless, why aren’t you trying to stop me?”

Lucius frowns. “I asked you to, did I not?”

Sebastian throws his garment to the side, leaving his shoulders with even less coverage. His eyes rove the slopes of them with a spark of fascination. Lucius slumps, glancing away in discomfort.

“…Are you really a man under there?”

Lucius shakes his head- not in denial of the question, but to his actions and suspected intent. Realizing the potential misinterpretation, he sputters, “Y-Yes… Of course I am.”

“I really can’t tell. Not even with more of you revealed. Of course, you have no breasts, but that prerequisite is not a feminine absolute.”

He wishes he would stop talking about his body and about strange things like feminine prerequisites. He sinks his gaze into his hands, which lay limp between his legs. They tremble. They make his emotions feel all the more exposed.

“Please, my lord. I would prefer we drop this subject.”

“Ohh, but it’s just so… interesting. Can you blame me? I’ve never met anyone like you. You are a bubbling spring, and my curiosity is parched desert soil.” Sebastian’s frame blocks the firelight, the heave of his lungs reaching Lucius’s ears. He moves to divest him of his second layer, but the monk jerks away. 

“Stop!” Truly unable to hold command over his balance, his upper body collapses atop the bed, rendering him more vulnerable than before. “This… This is none of your business! Is this the respect you treat all of your guests to?”

Lucius’s resistance goads Sebastian, who can hardly mask the indignation this causes him. The gentle veneer of his voice cracks and hardens. “You think I harbor any ill will toward you? I hold you in such high esteem! I merely want to appreciate your inimitable features!”

“Why can’t you do that without removing my clothes?” squeaks Lucius, hugging himself in defense.

“Because… Because you spilled tea on yourself! And you ought to disrobe before bed, anyway! If you really are a man, you shouldn’t have a problem with me seeing you in a state of undress!” 

At this juncture he looms full above Lucius and rips him out of his self-embrace with ridiculous ease, inducing a panicked cry. He tries to struggle free only to discover just how unnaturally feeble he has become. His wide, clear eyes beg for cessation, on the verge of spilling tears.

“I’m barely putting any strength into this,” Sebastian teases. “You’re helpless. So let me help.”

“You’ve done nothing to help me at all,” rebukes Lucius with a dose of venom that surprises even him. If his body can’t be of strength, then the wounded firmness of his voice makes up for it. “In fact, you’ve done nothing but hurt me.”

Sebastian exchanges confidence for incredulous outrage. “What, pray tell, is the _meaning_ of all your baseless accusations? I gave you a job, a gift, showered you with compliments, tucked you under my wing, and even offered to give you a place to call home... a way to help others! Do you _hear_ yourself? How have you come to hate me so much, so soon?”

“That boy…” Grave and disappointed, Lucius peers into his eyes directly, the same pleading quality morphing from begging him to stop to asking to prove him wrong. “You put him up to this, didn’t you?”

His impatience with the topic is woven into the harsh knit of his brow. “Up to what?”

His head feels so light it might just float away. If it’s a bad idea to let Sebastian know how much he suspects, he can’t even find it in him to grapple with care. “I… I recognize the watchman from earlier. He is… your trusted attendant, is he not?”

Sebastian laughs hollowly, and finishes it off with a sneer. “Don’t be preposterous. My attendant? Out in the middle of the night, away from me and the castle? You really do need to sleep before you do any more thinking. You’re conjuring up such wild speculations.”

“I may feel out of sorts, but I still have enough presence of mind to piece things together. I agree that it is preposterous – preposterous enough to make for an interesting coincidence.”

He speaks through gritted teeth. “Then if you agree, drop the subject. You’re starting to sound insane.”

“I cannot attribute this to madness, Lord Sebastian! I am saner than you think!”

The scion’s face darkens in a livid glower, but he is quick to try pouring water over his coals. He hangs his head and sighs, as though trying to paint Lucius into the ridiculous loon he wants him to feel like, and him, the exasperated, sensible party. 

“To me, it makes no sense. Why would they be back in town if they had come home with me just that afternoon?”

“I don’t know, but… I have many, many questions. Who hit my head?”

“You expect me to know? I never saw.”

“I felt it. Someone hit me. I think it must have been the boy himself…”

“You’re not even completely sure! And of all people, you pin it on the boy? You’re spinning your mind in such circles. You’ll tire yourself out at this rate. _I’m_ tired of indulging your spiteful fancies. All of this just to pin some blame on me.” He lowers his body over him, enough that the fringe of his bang caresses Lucius’s face. “I thought you a much sweeter soul at first, but it seems you’re rotting somewhere inside just like the rest of us.”

The observation almost causes the monk physical pain. “I don’t want to be right," he insists. "I don’t want you to have arranged for this meeting against my will; I want… I want you to have good intentions…”

Lucius wasn’t expecting Sebastian to lash out the way he does. His palm strikes his cheek with the shock of thunder, and Lucius yelps.

“Ah-! Why?! Why did you hit me?”

The fire spits and roars in the background as Sebastian glares daggers into his victim. His mouth quakes with wordless fury, tangles of sentences he doesn’t know how to put together. Lucius sees another face in him for a flashing second and his tremors worsen. Now, truly, he is paralyzed- not by drugs, but the infliction of his cruel past hitting him harder than Sebastian ever could. 

_The jingle of a key seals the door shut, barring interference from outside this dark prison but with enough moonlight to be gazed upon with hungry disapproval; he's reminded what he's done to push his teacher over the edge this time, how if he dares to humiliate him then it's only right that he humiliates him in turn, an eye for an eye and flesh upon flesh and a harsh reminder hissed against his hair that looking so pretty only lures carnal attention_

“Snap out of it!!”

Lucius hears himself shrieking and moaning, as though disembodied. There is an edge of fear jutting out of Sebastian’s enraged voice. He has a lot more to be worried about, but humiliation overcomes him. It’s only aggravated by the realization that he had blanked out of the present enough to completely miss out on the process that led to just his last layer covering him.

“S-Sorry!" he hurries to explain. "I have- I have a sickness, a-a spiritual sickness, so it’s been called, and sometimes, it-it-it arrests me, and I…”

Sebastian looks down on him with an indiscernible expression, one shadowed by horror and disgust. “You looked almost… How do I put it… possessed…?”

Lucius heaves a miserable sob. “Yes… I-I have been told that before. I’ve wondered, sometimes…”

A cunning thought crosses the monk’s mind, full of deceit uncharacteristic of him. Could his curse end up being his blessing tonight?

He earns another smack. The scheme is knocked out of his mind.

“Quit the act! You’re not fooling me, and you’re not getting off the hook with those ghastly theatrics!”

The instinctive urge to cover his face with his arm takes more energy than he possesses, so he stays immobile. He cinches his eyes shut and waits for the dull sting in his cheek to subside. Mollified by his silence, Sebastian trails his fingers down his abdomen. In a reversal of expectations, Lucius longs to be taken under by more fitful convulsions. It would spare him of brand new unpleasant violations he has no choice but to resign himself to. Through the blessed barrier of clothes, his hand goes straight for his groin. Sebastian unearths the answer he had been seeking, and Lucius buries a part of himself just to cope.

“…Incredible…” He kneads and gropes, and Lucius swallows. The room swirls in pronounced darkness creeping from corners, the delicate light sources quivering against the ceiling as though afraid. One of the chandelier's candle flames had whispered out prematurely, filling Lucius with an indistinguishable grief.

“Please… No more…”

As if obeying his plea, Sebastian guides his hand down his thigh, breaches the boundary of clothes and graces skin. “What I just felt was proof, and yet it is so at odds with the silkiness I feel here… The sight of unparalleled beauty up here, why… It’s exactly what one might imagine St. Elimine herself to look like.”

A torrent of agony from different, conflicting sources of memories dams up at his throat, choking him of words. Sebastian’s comments are disagreeable, borderline blasphemy, and he shakes his head in slow sways.

“Well, you could do without the gruesome facial contortions. Those don’t become you.”

Lucius can’t believe the indifference required to produce the things he hears him say, the obsessive concern with his unique appearance. He always thought that was a curse, too. If it didn’t invite derision, it made others long to get close to him, but not _him_ , just the _idea_ of him that strikes such ill-begotten reverence and adoration. In this context, he feels like a living plaything. He also feels six years old again: scared, vulnerable, smaller than a body straining to fit together with his. With the final flickers of his mental presence dying, he tries once more to negotiate.

“Why? Why do you do this?” His question is drenched and thick with anguish. 

“Why does this bother you so much?” the lordling snaps.

“Have you no understanding? _Please_ reconsider what you are doing… This is a dark path… For the s-sake of your soul, find it in you to-”

He clasps a hand over his mouth. “I don’t want to hear any of your damn preaching right now! We’re past that. You spit on my kindness, can’t even trust me… The last thing I want to hear you pretend like you actually care about how far gone my soul is. I think I deserve more.” He unmuzzles him. “This isn't how I thought we would go. You're just like the rest of them, yes... I’m in the mood to hear something else come out of that sweet little mouth of yours...” He pinches his inner thigh, and Lucius cries out in shock. “Yes, that’s more like it.”

His victim whimpers and squeezes more tears out. “Sto-o-o-op…” 

“I wasn’t going to do this, but you’ve driven me into a corner. I'm desperate to have you. And now that you’ve witnessed this side of me, there’s no going back.” He slaps his thigh, and with the earsplitting snap of flesh colliding, it resounds within the murkiest pit of Lucius’s unspeakable past. There is no reprieve. He will be revisiting his demons tonight. Sebastian parts his lips with his, his legs with his, and his very spirit gives way to his, too, if only for a heartless evening.


	6. A Darkwing's Gambit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for some descriptions of violence with weapons, including blood. Oh, and your run-of-the-mill skeeviness as usual, but nothing extreme. NOTHING like the last chapter, that's for sure. HOLLOW LAUGHTER
> 
> enjoy.

Raven’s drive to locate Lucius has been so prevailing that it defies the fatigue that should be dragging him down right now. The thing is, he never stops, not even to think; if he spares even a precious couple of seconds for the metaphorical drawing board, then that is just enough time to cut Lucius out of his world, out of _this_ world, depending on the situation. It doesn’t matter which is worse because Raven won’t tolerate either scenario. If he loses hope now, he might lose him forever.

The coarseness of his breathing and the hoarseness of his voice chanting his companion’s name reveal how hard he’s pushed, however. He’s combed through the streets so many times he could probably sketch a map without reference. If he can’t find Lucius himself, he keeps his eyes peeled for any more traces of him, but comes up with nothing but the boot from earlier. It is that portion of town that would get charted best in his hypothetical map. He pays special attention to whiffs of seedy activity: a young woman’s scream; the commotion of a brawl; the slink of creeping shadows; but they all run into dead, mundane ends: an ambush of tickle torture from her sweetheart; a regular drunken disagreement spilling out from a tavern into the streets; a stray dog protecting its meaty scavenging prize from other hungry hounds. As the night slips into stiller states of activity, it gets infuriatingly silent. His screams aren’t even being replied to by anyone entreating him to shut up, as though they have given up before he has. The night is well and truly dead.

He thought he had been on some kind of trail, but it went cold after he picked up the boot. If he’d gone in a different direction from that point, would he have had better luck…? There’s no time for regrets. He can fret about alternative choices later, but… as the moon prowls the sky and foliage breaks out in beads of frozen dew, Raven finds himself on the verge of giving into desperation. Taking action yields no results, his cries go unanswered, and Lucius isn’t buried in his arms like he wants. A foreboding feeling creeps through his chest: wherever Lucius is right now, he’s too far gone and in a peril he’s too late to save him from. Such a feeling gnaws at the touchiest nerves within him because it subdues him into the same powerless agony that fueled his drive for strength and revenge the day Cornwell became no more. He would rather die than let another pillar of his life come crashing down on him. For now, though, he gives up on his fruitless outdoor venture for one last check at the inn. The only way he’ll ever succumb to bed is if Lucius is sharing it with him.

And it’s back to the streets he goes. Returning to an empty room extinguished his hope and fueled his despair.

_”Lucius!!”_

It’s useless. He doesn’t even understand why he’s trying. It must be that he’s crossed the threshold of sanity. He loathes the thought of accepting such a cataclysmic loss and advances in spite of his odds.

The night goes, too.  


* * *

  
Morning should never have come without Lucius, but at least it brought new prospects. More people mean more questions, more leads. He doesn’t have to knock on doors.

“Have you seen a ma- someone with long, blond hair in light blue and white monk’s garb last night? Had a limp, probably upset about something...”

Raven would often be received with blinking surprise, but that’s because he would always ask with such bloodshot urgency. The young man he’d just asked follows this formula and completes it the same way he’s growing accustomed to. “Uhh… N-No, not that I recall…”

“That’s fine. What about you?” he asks the frumpy older woman accompanying him.

“Well…” She takes a pause for consideration. “I don’t know about last night, but…”

“But?!” he presses, more alive than ever. “Was he in any danger?”

“He was being carried off like a sack of flour over by the town square. He looked very troubled, and I was getting a bit worried, so...”

“What?!” Unable to restrain himself, he grabs her shoulders and bores his eyes into hers. “Who took him? What did the bastard look like? Tell me everything.”

“Ma!” her son wails ineffectually.

At first, she retracts in shock. After darting her gaze up and down the features he forces her to look at, an epiphany hits. “He… Oh! Oh, come to think of it, he looked a lot like you.”

Raven releases her at once and smacks his forehead enough to make it smart. He regrets everything.

“…Nevermind. That was yesterday afternoon.” She bobs her head up and down, her son bracing her so this menacing mercenary might be discouraged to do that again. “Forget I asked.”

“Okay… Um, good luck finding him,” she finishes with a simper. “If I happen to see him, I’ll tell him you’re looking for him.”

“Thanks.”

Damn it! Hadn’t ANYONE witnessed what happened last night? If it was intense enough for Lucius to lose a shoe over it, surely there would have been some kind of commotion for folks to blather about afterward. Raven shoves his hands in his pockets and trudges onward, picking out his next target.

“You see someone with long, blond hair wearing blue and white monk’s robes last night? After dark? Had a hurt leg, reason to be worked up about something, stupidly pretty…”

“Nope. Can’t say I did.”

Everyone else he runs into doles out replies to the same effect, but phrased differently.

“Not that I can remember…”

“’Fraid you’re gonna have to ask someone else.”

“No, sir. Why do you ask?”

“Pretty? I thought you said he was a guy.”

He spins in the same circles he had last night, only everyone gets to watch the fuse on his patience get shorter and shorter. He tries not to let panic get the best of him. The longer he tarries, the further away he could be. By the end of the day, he could be in Bern for all he knows. Run ragged by the hopelessness of it all, Raven sinks to a crate parked outside the spicier’s shop and sits, the turmoil of the events stacking from yesterday to today finally plowing him over. He clasps his hands together over the boot, sets his elbows on his thighs and rests his throbbing head on top of his knuckles, hoping the medley of piquant and earthy aromas wafting out onto the streets might alleviate it some. 

Where the hell could Lucius be? He’s so desperate, he almost feels like sending a prayer to St. Elimine or something. Surely she’d have some stock in seeing one of her own devotees to safety, right? While resting his worn-out body, he lets his mind do the searching alone.

They were here yesterday, just passing through. Snapshots of his companion from that day flash through his memory. Sunrise played with his hair. Sunset did, too. He giggled at a funny-shaped apple in the market stall and tried to show it to Raven, but he hadn’t been in the mood. He remembers the sober expressions he wore at dinner, the surprise he wore when lifted off his bad foot and the chagrin that followed, the happy note that rose from his throat when he kissed him before it all fell apart. Of all the memories he recalls, the ones that stand out most to him are windows to his feelings. He tries to think from Lucius’s perspective. The only reason he can imagine him leaving was to tail after him like a frantic, petulant child to make amends. Nobody he talked to saw him after dusk, but although he’s questioned it numerous times he’s sure this boot belongs to his partner: the style, material, wear, and size of it all matches up, and it was undone when he found it, just as he had left it. Not that the last point really meant anything, unless he had been in so much of a rush he didn’t feel like he had time to secure it to his foot. What matters most is how certain he is that Lucius lost this boot.

Then, he thinks back to the smug, punchable face of Marquess Khathelet’s eldest son and his thoughts turn stormy. From the moment he flagged them down for a secret job, his pompous attitude rubbed him the wrong way. The only opinion he bothered to hold for him would have been left at lukewarm disapproval if he hadn’t kissed the very earth Lucius walked on. It was creepy, and he could tell Lucius felt the same through the uneasy politeness he thought he owed Sebastian. He scowls at the image of him touching his hair unprompted, hears him wish for a kindhearted and devoted vassal, and his stomach feels like a bushel of lemons. It makes him so mad he wants to go back in time and snatch him from that idiot all over again, but the thought is ridiculous because that already happened, and he has bigger worries than a horny lordling who can’t take care of daddy’s lance so he makes a couple renowned mercenaries go do it for him so he never finds out. He sighs, pulling his head up from his lap to frown at the northern horizon.

Where his hands held leather, there is now empty air. Raven jerks his head back down and flips his palms over in stupefaction when he realizes he didn’t drop it somehow, and then bolts up from his seat to scan his surroundings like an unhooded falcon. It drives him crazy when he doesn’t see it or anybody running off with it, and he can’t help but wonder who the hell would swipe just one well-worn boot in the first place. Something hard collides with the back of his skull and he sends a hand to the spot on reflex, cringing and wheeling around to strike whoever did it. He runs into the wall instead and is treated to giggles that come from a place he can only describe as on high.

“You’re making a fool of the wrong person!” he barks while he swerves around again. Up in the eaves, a young, disheveled boy is tucked against the support beam, grinning like a faerie as he clutches the boot close to his chest. He evades Raven swiping at him with a rotating swing to another beam. Raven’s resting face always manages to look mad, but now it’s cranked up to an actual show of infuriation.

“Is that really how you’re gonna be? Well, fine! If you’re that bored, I’ll give you something to preoccupy yourself with— nursing the sores I give you once I’m done with you!”

“Are you missing somebody?” He dangles the boot before him. Raven’s eyes widen before he narrows them in puzzled scrutiny. That’s not how the taunt should go.

“’Somebody’? Don’t you mean, ‘something’?” 

“No. You’re not missing the boot, are you? You’re missing the person who belongs to the boot.”

Raven’s mood pivots enough to stun him momentarily. “…Yes!” He brushes his relief aside for the wariness that creeps in at this strange kid. “Yes. I am. What of it, and how do you know?”

The boy jumps down from his perch and lands on his feet with catlike polish. He’s covered in old dirt and his clothes are in tatters and he’s all browns and grays. He looks like a street rat. Something about him sends his memory scrambling, like he should know who he is, but the feeling is so weak and baseless he second-guesses himself and opts to pay attention to the information he has to offer instead of his racing mind.

“How I know isn’t important. What’s important is that I do.”

“Spit it out then! Where is he?”

“Sorry, but my information comes at a price! I won’t squeak a word until you give me enough go-whoa!”

Raven lunges for the pest and manages to snag the scarf around his neck. He yelps and struggles as the fighter lifts him from the ground and closes in on him.

“Listen. I don’t care about money, alright? I can afford your information. But what I can’t afford is the possibility of you splitting before I get anything out of you. So you’re gonna have to tell me _everything_ you know.”

The kid’s lips are tight as a lockbox. Raven frowns harder.

“Not gonna talk, eh? Fine.” He yanks at his ear and twists it like it’s the key. The boy howls loud enough that passersby stall in their progress. 

“Aaah okay, okay, okay! But please promise; I need the money real bad and Lucius needs help!”

He lets go of his ear but slams the boy up against the building and cranes in. “Wait, what? You know something I don’t! His name, even? Out with it!!” To emphasize his urgency, he presses him harder into the unforgiving stone masonry. 

“Nn… C-Castle Khathelet…”

A frozen shock overtakes him. It wasn’t like he hadn’t thought of it before, but the notion hung there along with the more farfetched ones. Even now, given the sparse set of clues he had before this brat came along, he has trouble piecing together the scenario that would end with him all the way over at the castle unless Sebastian somehow managed to not only locate him but sweep him off his limping feet. The last part wouldn’t be any trouble at all, but seeking him out in the streets would be a gamble, and to efficiently carry it out required some… information. He stares the kid down even more intensely. His racing mind hits the finish line. Glancing about, he removes the kid from the wall and pulls him around the corner away from the main streets.

“ _How_ did he end up in a place like that, and how did you figure this all out?” he questions on a low voice.

“Look, is it really so hard to believe I saw it happen?”

“See _what_ happen?”

“Him get taken away, duh!”

“By whom?”

“Lord Sebastian!”

“Did you see him take him to the castle?”

“Yeah.”

“All the way there? Please. He probably did it on horseback. You don’t have a horse.”

“Well, it makes sense, right? He only lives there and he was heading in that direction. Look, I dunno!”

“Then I don’t have to pay you, now do I?”

“Ugh! That’s not important! You may have ripped the information out of me, but what I really want you to hire me for is… I’m a thief, and I know how to sneak inside the castle.”

Raven moves to pin him against the wall again, but this time, the boy pulls a dagger on him and thrusts it into his forearm to stop him. The chemistry of their reaction times results in the blade slashing at the bandages compressing his wrists, but as a seasoned warrior Raven is quick to retaliate by grabbing the boy’s slender wrist with his undamaged arm and slamming it against the stone. His sliced arm is treated to little more than a deep scratch, so he is able to pin him by both arms with ease. The boy’s fingers slacken. His knife clatters against the road. 

“Why isn’t it important? I want answers!”

“And… I-I gave you them! Now let go!”

“Not so fast!” He gives him another firm push to discourage him from struggling again. “Look, I’ve seen you before. You proposition me with information in exchange for some coin. You know I know Lucius, you know Lucius by name, and I know you from the inn and I know you were probably following us around. All of this reeks of premeditation. Who else is involved in your little schemes? What made you track us down in the first place?”

The amateur thief dispenses a shuddering, impudent pout as he tries to maintain the vestiges of toughness. “I needed someone who knew how to heal. My friend was in trouble and now yours is, too.”

“That doesn’t answer my question. If you think I’m buying this, you have another thing coming. And I’m not buying your services, either, _thief_.” He lets him go with a pronounced shove and picks up the boot he dropped earlier in their skirmish. “If you really wanted my petty sellsword money so badly, you should have just stolen it like you stole this boot. The only way this kind of scheme would be profitable for you is if you have someone willing to pay you a _lot_. Otherwise, I don’t understand your persistent meddling.”

“It-It’s not just about the money!” he protests. “I… I may be street trash, I may live dishonestly, but it doesn’t mean I don’t have even a little bit of a heart! I have someone I care about very much! You really care about him, don’t you?”

Raven’s face screws up in wounded disgust. “I’m not accepting help from a backstabbing little scrub like you! You’re the reason Lucius is there to begin with, so I owe you nothing!”

“But… I can help!”

He kicks him in the gut and watches him crumple with vehement satisfaction. “You didn’t even deny it. Your help? I don’t want it! I don’t want anything to do with anyone who put me or Lucius in this situation to begin with! Begone!” Raven eschews his prospective ally and storms off, his purpose polished by this exchange, his resolve honed and his rancor sharpened.

At all costs, he will rip Lucius from the clutches of that loathsome cad. The lust for his blood surges in his own, potency intensifying with each step taken toward that single-minded aim.  


* * *

  
Solitude in the misty morning light was his very first salvation. 

He cherishes this minute atmospheric wonder so often overlooked any other morning, how daylight steals into the room from the windows and smothers the walls and floors and everything in between with a stark bluish white, the mellow gold of the sun muted and made cold by cloudiness. Its brightness, its promise of a world outside this miserable tower, uplifts him. How he longs to evaporate and become one with the light, to beam himself out of his lavish cell and set his glow wherever he pleases. Such an extravagantly decorated room is a contrast from the impoverished state his soul has receded into.

He tries not to think about it at length because it takes too much emotional effort, effort he no longer possesses because the last drops of vitality had been callously wrung out of him. He lays atop his captor’s bed a used-up husk, dry of life and tears. His body is just as worse for the wear; his muscles ache from all the shaking, from how many times he wrenched and struggled and arched his back against his will. Parts of his body sting when he so much as graces fingertips against them, and when he shifts the wrong way, he’s reminded of the most humiliating violations. In spite of his ailments, he feels suspended from it all, his mind a layer above the suffering, hovering above it as though it’s his only means to survive. Very well that his body no longer really feels like it belongs to him. Instead, he basks in the temporary peace of the morning light and wishes the seclusion would last. There is only one person he can expect for company.

Time flows inconsistently for him, just as it had the moment Sebastian assaulted him. He fades in and out of the present, feels childlike and then mature, here and then somewhere else entirely, a place he hasn’t been to in over a decade. Footloose as his spirit is, it is shackled by the demon that put him here, bound up with his enfeebled body. Any thought he wields to elevate himself is crushed by the overbearing reminders of what transpired, what will transpire yet when that selfish wretch returns.

For a while, the most powerful thing he can do is pray. He sends wishes to St. Elimine for freedom and fortitude, for the righting of Sebastian’s warped soul, and for Raven’s well-being. Raven must be devastated wondering where he is and why he left. He can’t imagine what sorts of conclusions he might draw. Thanks to their heated quarrel, he might even think he left on his own accord! Most of him longs to tell him, but a part of him wants to shelter him from the knowledge of this harrowing reality. He hates it when Raven’s heart is bent on relieving his wrath with violence. He’ll want Sebastian’s blood on his axe and he won’t rest until he has resolution. Lucius’s stomach lurches, already aching like the waste of starvation. As much as he should tell the truth, the less Raven knows, the less messy it will be. If only he could fling himself into those sturdy arms of his, be reunited with his lifelong partner and never speak of these horrors to anyone.

He really misses him.

Before Raven, his life had been mired in darkness: poverty, sickness, grief, bullying, abuse… and nights like Sebastian. Whenever any of those hardships became too much to handle, he would always seek comfort in the light of St. Elimine. Without her teachings, he would have surely perished from despair alone, lost the will to live even though his battered, malnourished body urged him to die. Even last night he sought her, borrowed some of her holy strength to bear the calamity wrought across his skin, but… in that midnight hour, he also found his soul screaming for Raven’s. In desperation he escaped to the past, a better past when he felt loved and secure instead of effaced and endangered. It was much like running to the distant memory of his mother’s withered arms, except he clutches memories of Raven much closer; his presence is a clearer thing, an everyday thing, much more solid and alive and substantial than a phantasmal echo of his past or future. He _could_ be here. 

He really wants him to be here.

If only… for selfish reasons alone, the kinds that beg for consolation like a child who tumbled and scraped his knee and longs to be kissed and held and promised it will get better.

On the other hand, he really shouldn’t be here if he knows what’s good for him. It would be difficult for him to get past the castle gate, and even if he managed, he would find himself an intruder and enemies all around.

Waiting to be rescued is not an option. Hopes dimmed by the prospect of suffering weeks, months, and heaven forbid years in this chamber before he finds the right opportunity, Lucius rolls to his side and watches the bright sky out the window. He watches the mist slowly dissipate over time and the sunbeam’s pale hue warm up. Eventually, he gathers enough strength to lift his tired, broken body off the bed and limp toward the sun’s invitation, and the beckoning of cheerful clamor at a crescendo outside. The courtyard with its carefully maintained path and lawn and hedges lies below him, far out of reach. Figures dance and cavort...

The door opens. He whirls around, clutching his chest with trembling hands.

“Lucius…”

He swallows and falls to his knees. His voice pushes out weak and asthmatic. 

“Y-Yes, my… my lord…?”

Sebastian makes no move to assist, just crosses his arms and studies him. “…I gave it some thought. My untoward behavior. I lost control of my temper last night, and my curiosity, well… I’m told it often gets the best of me. Last night was no different. I crossed a line. I shouldn’t have gone so far with you.”

This rings familiar. Lucius recalls their encounter behind the church. Putting that into perspective with his subsequent actions, his apology seems awfully hollow. He remains quiet, keeping his gaze fixed to his lap and knowing better than to voice his thoughts.

“…”

“But I want to start on a new footing.” He takes a few steps closer, to which Lucius bristles. Sebastian kneels before him, vying for eye contact but earning none. “I don’t want your impression of me to be tarnished by last night. It’s true that… I harbor a certain affection for you, and it’s such a powerful, inundating love that I’m afraid it spilled over, all onto you.”

Lucius bites his lip. “…P-Please, don’t… I don’t wish to talk about it.”

Sebastian pulls a mildly vexed expression. He taps his finger on his knee, then says, “Well, that is fine. I came in here to tell you that I want to make it up to you by offering to let you out of these quarters. Of course, you’re not well enough to be given free reign, but my Lord Father has invited special guests over to entertain tonight, and I was hoping to spend it in your company. It will be a privilege for the both of us.”

The mere idea of spending any more time in his molester’s company turns his stomach over and his blood to ice. Chilled like this, he’s too frozen to offer much response.

“It will be fun! _Please_ feel better. You look so downtrodden. I hate seeing it. Tonight should enliven you up some. You’ve been cooped up hurting for too long.”

“I have,” agrees Lucius. _And it’s all your doing._  


* * *

  
It’s true that Raven doesn’t have a plan when he spares not even a second to prepare for his expedition to the castle. But he’s armed, he’s stocked, and he’s a loaded ballista ready to spit rage. When he left that brat in town, he felt in his gut that he could take on anything and anyone purely on that emotion alone. As he traveled the road, he increasingly began to regret his pride stepping in. It would be really handy to have tips on how to sneak inside.

That didn’t change how repulsed he’d be if he accepted help from an actor who played him into this mess to begin with. He refused to slip into the role that tiny crook wanted for him. No, he would play his own part in taking him back. 

On the way, he is allotted some travel time to consider how he would manage to breach a heavily guarded estate all by himself. His better judgment warns him how impossible a feat he’s looking to tackle. It’s not Sebastian he’s too concerned with, but everything leading up to him. This wouldn’t be the first time he’s laid siege to a fortress, but the only reason he’d met with success in the past was because he had the army of three lords at his back. Storming a castle is difficult enough as it is with an army, so without one, he would have to rely on more than just powering his way through.

As much as he would love to storm the castle, he’s not that stupid. Desperate and running out of time, but not stupid enough to charge through hordes of armed guards ready to rain death upon him from every direction. It doesn’t matter if he’s stronger than any of them when they’ve got numbers on their side. He never had the knack for planning or strategies, so he’s in a bit of a bind, but he has no choice but to do whatever it takes as soon as possible. For a moment, his faith in his ability to save him falters until he remembers the hungry look that overcame Sebastian upon finding Lucius beautiful, and his intolerance for whatever he might be doing to him now overpowers his self-doubts. He _has_ to get in. Knowing Lucius is with that bastard sets his hackles on end, and he can’t stand leaving him there for a second longer. He can’t even bear the thought of stalling to request assistance from past comrades, even though that would be more effective than going it alone. Eliwood, Hector, and Lyn all have the necessary influence to squeeze Lucius out from his clutches, but that would take an excruciating span of time he can’t afford. He doesn’t know exactly what Sebastian’s designs are, but it can’t be good.

Besides, this is a personal vendetta now. 

Over halfway there, birdsong cedes to utter discord. Cries of anguish pelt the skies and smashing wood breaks the air. Raven hastens his pace to get a glimpse of the commotion. In the middle of the road, a convoy of merchant caravans is beset by burly, scruffy men hurling axes at the wagons and threatening an unusual crowd of travelers: a flock of anthropomorphic birds? A few bishops? Pegasi? No, wait. They’re just horses with fake wings strapped on. He then realizes these aren’t merchants, but a band of hapless performers threatened by roadside ruffians. It’s a chaotic whirlwind of colorful paraphernalia and bells and singing steel. They’re your typical fare of axe-wielding brutes, maybe a couple of swordsmen. He unsheathes his blade.

He dives into the fray.

One of the bandits paints a perfect target for him: his broad back, ripe for the filleting. By the time he springs up and plunges his sword into his vitals, it’s too late for his comrade to warn him.

“Morty, behind ya! Nooo!!”

Raven pounces on Morty and rips his blade from bone and sinew with a nauseating squelch, eyes trained on his next victim. Killing injects a surge of bloodlust into Raven’s veins, and it mingles nicely with the pervading urge to undo Sebastian. His lips curl into a satisfied grin that makes his new adversary quicker to fling his hand axe at him, but his haste sends it sailing so far to the left that it buries itself into the trunk of a tree. He shrieks, turns tail, and runs into two more brigands corralling a kicking young actress bundled in trailing silk robes far too constricting to even walk in, let alone run. Her eyes pop open when she sees Raven pursue the fleeing hooligan, but she covers her eyes with her draping sleeve just before he slices into him.

At this point, he’s garnered attention from the bandits, and one of the kidnappers lets go of the girl’s legs in favor of hoisting his axe. “Where did _you_ come from?!”

“Shut up and die already!” 

Axe blocks sword for one swing but isn’t quick enough to repel Raven’s next fatal stab. He rotates to the next ruffian, who tosses the girl aside in favor of dealing with Raven. 

“Damn it! I could sell her _costume_ for more than this whole caravan’s worth!” hisses the desperate swordsman as he readies himself for combat. “So let’s make this quick!”

“Fine by me.”

Their blades collide in clattering metal and dance a few times before Raven overpowers his opponent with a ferocious swing and cuts him down. Blood dots his arms and chest like badges from his kills. A flash of crimson and gold drags the corner of his eye to the fallen actress gaping at him from the side of the road in horror and awe. Quickly assessing his surroundings for threats, he stoops down and offers his hand. She balks.

“It’s okay,” he reassures curtly. “I’m no brigand.”

Sparing only a moment longer for hesitation, she reaches for his hand. He helps her to her feet, then reinforces the grip on his sword’s handle and steps in front of her, scanning for enemies among scurrying thespians. It would be pretty unfortunate if he sliced an innocent performer through just because of a really good bandit costume. A rough, shaken voice booms over the turmoil.

“Guys! Morty’s dead!”

“What?!” comes a chorus of a couple shell-shocked men. 

“He’s been sliced through! His blood’s all over!”

“But we took care of everyone who was armed…!”

“Tch! You lunkheads got some gold out of this, right? Retreat!”

Raven only sees them vanishing through the thicket, growing further away. The youthful actress clutches onto Raven. He jolts, but only because he’s keyed up and ready for battle. She trembles, hiding her face.

“Thank you…”

It’s a touch sentimental for him, especially right now. He grunts in acknowledgment.

“It’s nothing.”

The frantic crowd of performers settles down gradually, glancing about in confusion, wondering if the coast is clear. Nobody’s smashing into anything or getting hoisted off their feet, and no more silver glints of metal threaten to deliver death or destruction of property. A trio of crow-people notice Raven and scream.

“B-Bandit! A bandit!!” 

Everyone swivels around to where the actor jabs a wing. They jump, gasp, and whisper. Some duck behind the wagon and glance at the forest for potential hiding spots. Raven feels the hold around his waist tighten.

“No! He saved us!” the girl protests. “He’s our hero!”

More bewildered chatter pervades until it breaks for mirthful grins and unfettered cheers. Raven scrunches into himself a little, unused to this kind of wild celebration on his behalf, especially when the musicians break out their lutes and pipes and the crow people start skipping toward him, thronging him in an impromptu dance. It’s an eyeful of flapping and wiggling. It’s a bit much.

After their merry uproar dies down, one of the men in holy vestments approaches him with hands clasped together, soft brown eyes swimming in gratefulness. “Sir, we don’t know what we would have done without you. We don’t know where you came from or why you helped us or how you sourced such courage for a motley band of performers like us. How can we ever repay you?”

Raven shrugs, placing a hand at his hip. The entire caravan is crowded behind the man in white, eagerly awaiting his reply. 

“Normally, I expect to be paid before I take on a job like this. I’m a mercenary. Name’s Raven.”

“Oh…” His smile turns rueful. “Well, seeing as we were just robbed, I, erm… don’t know if we have the means to compensate you anymore.”

“Don’t sweat it.” He slides his sword back into its sheathe. “I wouldn’t have expected payment, anyway. It’s not like you hired me. I just jumped in uninvited.”

“That’s so noble of you!” 

“Hardly. I hate bandits, and they were just in my way.”

“’Just in my way!?’ Haha! We have a jester here, folks!” Cue audience laughter, and a rimshot. Raven can’t believe this. The performer then asks, “Where are you headed?”

“…I have some… “business” to take care of at Castle Khathelet.”

“Really? That’s where we’re going, too! See, we may be an odd assortment of talent, but we’re actually rising stars. You may have caught wind of the Super Troupers. Well, Marquess Khathelet certainly has, and we’ve been requested to perform for him at court.”

This piques Raven’s attention. The route to get inside the castle has just been paved for him.

“Is that so? Then… I think there’s a way you could pay me back.”

“Oh?”  


* * *

  
And that was how Raven ended up stuffed in a raven costume. 

This… certainly puts a new spin on playing his own role in taking Lucius back.

The new plan they hatched together was to smuggle Raven in disguised as a performer for Super Trouper. Nothing could have been tackier, but it sure beats knocking on the gate and expecting to be let in. Or worse. He readjusts his beaked masquerade mask and spreads his dark, feathery cloak, fanning it out in mimicry of wings. He scoffs, glancing over at the weapons he doesn’t want to discard.

“This is stupid.”

The wardrobe mistress giggles into her velvet glove. “Oh, it’s not bad. You make a pretty good raven.”

Nobody can see the hideous face Raven makes under his mask except for how hard the corners of his mouth drag down. She laughs even harder at his expense.

“Pretty poetic, don’t you think?”

“Hardly. So what is the play even about?”

“You don’t have to perform, dear. It’s a little pageant we call The Blood Pact. It is based off a tale that has passed on through history, one hailed from a faraway land that may or may not have existed long, long ago. The kingdom of ravens is tricked into signing an oath in blood stating that the raven kingdom must do its bidding, one that curses its people to die bit by bit, increasingly every day. The king is distraught by this, begins to lose his family, and struggles to find a way to put an end to the curse. He eventually finds a loophole by working with the empress of that country, who becomes his ally, and together they exact revenge on the corrupt senators who wronged the ravens and have the pact destroyed.”

“Huh. Not bad, I guess.”

Her lips curve in a sly smile. “You can still join us, if you’d like. You don’t even have to rehearse any lines. There’s a role available where all you have to do is croak and die.”

Raven frowns. “I have better things to do than die.”

“Suit yourself. But it might allow you a unique opportunity for observation. The Marquess’s family will no doubt be in attendance.”

He lends this some thought. “And it might give me the chance to check if Lucius is with him. When do I die?”

“In the play?” She pokes her tongue out. “Oh, that’s Act I.”

“Perfect. That should give me ample time to sneak around while they’re distracted.”

“And you’re wearing black.” She pats his cape. “So roguish, and mysterious to boot. Careful, I’m starting to swoon! Being rescued by you would be any girl’s dream. Your partner doesn’t know how jealous I am.”

Embarrassed, he jerks away from her even more. “Shut up. I’m supposed to be a stupid bird, not the stuff of romantic fantasy.”

“But that’s the hidden role you’re playing tonight!” She clasps her hands together and tilts her head with a little bounce, taking enjoyment in his brusque shame. “The masked hero who sneaks into the castle to save someone important to him! This kind of plotline deserves to be a story just as much as some political drama with bird people and revenge. It might attract plenty of crowds…”

At this, he can’t resist smirking. “Who knows? They might end up being pretty similar after all.”

The mistress laughs full-force and flashes a wink at him. “And it will be a romance, of course!”

Raven chokes on his words, because he has none he wants to give her.

The jostle of the wagon scaling rough dirt road evens into a steady roll. They reach the castle gatehouse. Guards greet the guests and grant them entry after performing a check. Raven blends right in with the rest of the theatre company and follows the procession through the bailey with victory blazing in his chest. He’s that much closer to Lucius.

Castle residents observe their entrance with various reactions, most prominently excitement and intrigue. They’re a big group, and some of them take this opportunity to engage in improvised performances to titillate their audience. Raven abstains, sending his sights all around the towers and buildings for signs of his friend or enemy. 

Not that he expects to glimpse the acolyte, if he was brought against his will, but he can only guess how much freedom he’s allowed here. If he sees that snooty asshole, however, he’s not sure how much he can hold back if the mere thought makes him dizzy with gall. If the thief had been lying to him about Castle Khathelet, then he would make it his personal goal to hunt him down and strangle him senseless. On the other hand, if he’s right, he’ll be strangling someone else. 

They pass through another gate and into the verdant sprawl of a courtyard. The swish of pale gold captures his vision from atop a tower. Long, flowing hair… and it vanishes. His heart thumps so hard.

“Lucius…?”

It could be a lousy trick played on him by his hopes and expectations. Nonetheless, that glimpse imbues him with even more hope. He follows the lead of the Super Troupers and gets ready to prepare for his miniature dress rehearsal. He needs to know how to play his part, after all, both in the play and his plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, in case you were wondering, I just dropped a Tellius reference in here hardcore, and yes, Raven has just been transformed into a laguz. Or, well, some Elibean approximation of what they think this "mythological" raven kingdom's people might be. Or like, a theatrical representation. Look, if Henry can fantasize about turning into one in Awakening then by gum so can these morons. It's probably factually incorrect anyway. Naesala might be egregiously out-of-character for all I know and the costumes don't look like Kilvas people at all. 
> 
> waves hands mysteriously
> 
> HA! RAVEN THE RAVEN! REAL FUNNY, RIGHT GUYS?!
> 
> And psst: scholars whisper that if you squint just right, you might see an Anna cameo hiding out in this fic.
> 
> You're not imagining the chapter count climbing, either. I was totally off-base for how long this would play out, but... uh, I hope you guys don't mind length! Buckle up, kids!


	7. A Captive Audience

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've finally updated! The particular warnings you want to look out for with this chapter in particular ARE:  
> -coerced physical affection  
> -violence with weapons involving blood  
> As always, thank you for reading this far. I'm the type of FE player who refuses to play casual/easy mode on any of my save files. I also turn it off every time my careless actions result in a character's death. I think that tells you a lot about me and why I'm both sorry and not sorry for throwing Lucius and Raven in a blender and setting it to awful.

“You look stunning.”

Sebastian enters his chamber after vacating it so that Lucius may be dressed by an appointed servant in a grant of privacy strangely misplaced when compared to his behavior the night prior. His hand perches beneath his mouth in an open-palmed splay of helpless reverence as he regards Lucius. The monk smooths his hands over rosy-tinted robes, assessing himself with less enthusiasm. The clothes he arrived in got soiled, ripped, and in need of repair, so Sebastian saw to it that he got fitted with a change. He adjusts the chunky gold pendant kissed by small garnets and sits taller in his chair, offering him no expression. The lord comes closer, making him shrink a little, which in turn makes Sebastian’s grin fade. Lucius chooses his words carefully.

“Red is… an unusual color on me.”

“But so invigorating.” He kneels so that they’re level and reaches to brush the side of his bangs away from his face, but halts when Lucius winces. He bites his lip in frustration, stares at his knees, and then tries tweaking his approach by resting his hand on the arm of the chair and renewing one of his more pleasant expressions in a desperate bid to reclaim the trust he damned beyond accessible redemption. “I happen to think that you could make any color shine, even the stoniest and drabbest of grays.”

Lucius shakes his head, still distant. “You only say this to flatter me.”

“Think what you will, but I mean it from the bottom of my heart.” 

They remain mired in a thick silence, nothing but faint birdsong between them. Sebastian’s fingers curl in a tight fist and become the resting place for his troubled gaze. Lucius turns away from his attire in favor of the sky framed by the windowpane, channeling all of his thoughts on that single fixture to keep his psyche steady. Thoughts drift isolated, one source trying to summon the necessary weapons to pierce the insurmountable fortress of the other, who is locked away warding them off from within aspirations of freedom.

“…It hurts,” Sebastian finally admits. Lucius rotates his head to accommodate him into his vision. “It hurts when you go cold on me like this.”

In all his time interacting with Sebastian, the only hint of vulnerability he revealed to him was his shame in having been so careless with an important heirloom and to stoop to ask for outside help. While Sebastian hurt him far more than jilting him ever could, his devotion to confiding in another’s pain tips the scales. A reasonable response would be to explain why he gives him such little feeling in return, but instead, he sifts his admittance with a question of his own.

“Why does it hurt you so?” 

“Because… I have feelings for you that only deepen. But the longer we know each other, the more you spurn me. I’m not so stupid that I can’t figure out why, but…” He sighs, ruminating on his next sentence with a tight, focused brow, trawling through himself to pull up reasons. “I have lived a lonely, loveless life.”

Lucius nods along to encourage him to continue, his walls coming down just enough for him to peek over.

“And… well, what can I say? Surely you have witnessed the drama and the proprieties and the unique struggles that come with a noble upbringing. Your lord was the eldest son, no? Well, I’m in that same position, and I find that… while I am all too eager to embrace my destiny, this kind of life comes at a price. Trust, a real sense of trust, comes at a premium, so rare but so valuable. Even those closest to you are suspicious of you, and in turn you are suspicious of them, especially… among siblings, who are supposed to love and trust one another dearly.”

“I can easily imagine, yes. Though Lord Raymond... Raven, had his own challenges, his was not related to sibling rivalry.”

“I know. He had a lovely sister who was sent off to Etruria. Instead, I have a lousy, know-it-all younger brother who doesn’t seem to understand his place. And as his age climbs, his ambitions mount, his sympathy drains, his tongue sharpens..." Sebastian's visible eye pins the door behind them without the twist of his head. "To what end would he stop at? But it isn’t just a matter of sibling strife, no… Even attendants and secretaries and tutors and… and friends… all are held at a distance, all because of this suffocating thing we call status. Surrounded by people at all hours, but dreadfully lonely as they interact with your title and not… well, not _you._ Even my closest companions hold more loyalty to my father than me! And the ladies my parents select for me to court… I care not for them, only the ones I pick out for myself. Commoners, wretched little souls, flowers sprung from ruined gardens... They evoke such pity, such warmth, and then love...! But they never approve, and my position is once again threatened by my all-too-capable younger brother. It’s my right, and yet one egregious misstep and he will take my birthright away from me. For that, all the love in my life is destined to be ephemeral and inconstant. My worth, measured constantly.”

A stint of pity rises within Lucius as he watches his face quiver with constrained emotion as he recounts a personal aspect of his past. And for the first time, he'd lifted his mask for Lucius to glimpse undercurrents of genuine human suffering. Any other person he might treat to a hand on their shoulder, but this was Sebastian, a monster he had become rather afraid of in the spell of a night. He sighs, wearing sympathy on his face instead, visibly pained by his troubles as he is wont to feel even for his worst enemies, who wage battles with life just as he does.

“Your station is a heavy one to bear, but…it sounds to me like you might still have some hope.”

“Yes.” He brightens up. “Yes…! You see… When I met you, I sensed profoundly and with all my being that you of all people could understand me, would be able to connect with me like no other. Not just a flower, but a...” He grabs for his hand, which Lucius hasn’t the time to withdraw and succumbs to a flash of shock instead, craning backwards in the chair as far as he can from Sebastian. This only causes the lord to grimace harder. “Instead, I am treated to… to this…! ”

“You… You v- violated my trust, Lord Sebastian,” reminds Lucius on a shuttering breath. “And I am not the hope you have, see-”

“You don’t understand how desperately I craved your touch!” he cries, squeezing his hand and drilling his eyes into his. “I believed with all my heart that you would find it in you to forgive the blackness consuming my soul, my tortured position, and yet… yet you push me away time and time again. What can I _do_ to make amends? How will I warm you up to me again? Can’t you forgive a man for his transgressions?”

“There is one way, and I believe you already know what it is,” he replies collectedly. “Please let me go.”

Sebastian’s grip starts to vibrate. He releases his hand like throwing something repulsive to the floor and grabs a cup of tea that has long cooled hard enough for some of the liquid to leap out of its vessel. “And let you fend for yourself out there?" he squalls with a finger stabbing the window. "Preposterous…! You really need to calm down. I told you to drink your medicine. How can you hope to get any better if you don’t make it more of a priority?"

“I d-don’t want to drink it,” he protests with a shaking head. “It disagrees with me.”

“It will soothe some pain! Just trust me!”

“I can’t!”

“Why not?!”

“Trust is earned, not demanded!”

“Why… you…”

He seizes the back of Lucius’s neck and crams the cup against his lips, using his fingers to compel his jaw open. He pours the tea into his mouth, then releases. Lucius coughs and sputters and ejects the tea in one forceful jet all over his aggressor. Further enraged, Sebastian pours another cupful, pulls the same moves on Lucius again, and before he can spit it out crams his lips against his to stop any torrents. He pins him by the shoulder with one hand, the other firmly cupping Lucius by the chin. Horrified, Lucius gulps it down with the lump forming in his throat. Sebastian kisses him long and hard even after the deed is accomplished, purely for his own satisfaction. Finished, he wipes his lips with the back of his hand and grins down at Lucius.

“Some people just don’t know what’s good for them, now do they?”

Lucius sinks his wavering focus into his lap, hands folded tightly, lips quivering.

“It’s a good thing you didn’t spill on your fresh change of clothes.” He bends down, scoops him up, and like a bride with cold feet, Lucius is laid in Sebastian’s arms, only his feet aren’t necessarily cold, just too injured to walk very far. “We shouldn’t dawdle any longer. We have a banquet to attend and a performance to watch. It will be a change of scenery for you. Aren’t you excited?”

He’s too far lodged within the trauma of moments ago to provide a reply.  


* * *

  
It’s all Raven can do not to steal away before the play and seek Lucius out prematurely, but the better part of his brain reins that impulse in. His best chance will undoubtedly be after his side-character’s swan song performance.

Rehearsal is agonizing because while they iron out all the rough patches of their drama, Raven has some real drama he can’t stand letting go unresolved for yet another botched soliloquy. 

“It’s fine if you have to improvise a little,” the soft-eyed man in ecclesiastical garb reassures his struggling empress. “Showtime is swiftly drawing near.”

“But… I don’t want to let anyone down,” she protests with a protruding lower lip. “Everyone will see right through me.”

“You’ve got the main message. Just envision what your character might want to say about her situation in such a moment. Tap into her heart. You might even come up with something better than the script itself.”

Raven approaches the pair and places a hand on his hip. They pull their attention to him.

“My weapons were taken away by the castle guards,” he mentions. “But you have some available as props.”

“If you’re asking to use them, help yourself,” he urges. “They aren’t forged of the best materials, however, since they’re meant for the stage of theater, not that of war…”

He unleashes a bellowing sigh that would put wind magic to shame. “I’ll take what I can get, I suppose. Thanks.”

“It’s no trouble at all. I only wish we had stronger weapons. Now!” He claps his hands together to rally his thespian troops. “We’d better break a leg! Everyone assemble to your locations backstage!”

The band of actors and their assistants pick up the pace, and so does Raven’s pulse. Stage fright is pretty easy to deny when there is a whole host of culpable reasons for such nervous energy to buzz through him this way. He follows, disguised as an actor disguised as a raven.

He waits in the screens passage with the rest of the ravens, sliding his head past the entryway every now and then to test what sorts of sneak peeks he can take from the audience, but most of the hall’s vantage points are obscured by the makeshift stage itself. From behind the stage, or rather, before it, residents and honored guests alike decorate the air with genial chatter, accompanying the whimsical notes of the musicians from the theater troupe that rolled in earlier, playing to whet their appetites while they dine. The lively ambiance, awash in the glow of dying sunlight falling in from the yawning windows arching and expanding like the mouths of gods, displaces Lucius from his surroundings even more. The vast hall reminds him of House Cornwell’s, but nothing of its spirit communicates the home of his past. He cradles warmer memories close to comfort himself in the midst of familiar unfamiliarity. During feasts, celebrations, and other such commemorations, he would often find himself seated on the dais thanks to little Raymond’s dogged pleas to have his new _friend_ sit next to him.

Against all control, tears bulge from the corners of his eyes, blurring the man whose design it was to sequester him away from the one his most cherished memories are shared with only to replace his home with a hollow approximation of an old life teeming with the nightmares of an even older one. A hand moves against his back. He startles, choking back a yelp.

“Don’t cry. It’s all right. You wouldn’t want to upset my mother and cause her to raise questions…”

Hollow, hollow, hollow… He’s nothing but hollow, honeyed words full of sentiments that are loosely if at all attached to his heart, used to control and deceive him, to shaft the trust he’s frantically scrambling to rebuild. Lucius finds himself waging a constant war between outright despising his character versus scraping together some ability to forgive him if he would just turn around, but because he lacks any genuine expression of remorse, the former side is winning. The only thing he can do is pray for his soul, the same he does for the demons who tormented his past. 

As for his mother, she had scrutinized him upon first meeting like a needle poking through flesh, peering down upon him from the bridge of her straight, statuesque nose. She’d asked who he was, to which Sebastian hastily explained that he was a monk of blessed St. Elimine, not another tragic convent waif nor a paramour as she surely suspected— observe his habit and don't let his comely face or sweet voice deceive!— and that he had rescued him outside of the estate grounds, was allowing him the space to recover. Dimly satisfied, she and her husband eased up and treated Lucius with reserved courtesy.

What Sebastian didn’t want her or anyone else to question were the unsavory details of last night’s rendezvous, or even that he originally hired him for mercenary work. When Lucius expressed that he really wanted to take his leave soon, Sebastian dominated the conversation with explanations of how obstinate his patient was and how just look at him; he can barely walk and should stay and wait even one more night for his sorry condition to improve, for he is alone and wandering and has no place to return to. If they could only know the kind of sacrilege their son had committed, they would in all likeliness be gravely appalled. Raping a member of the clergy is no venial crime. They did not resonate the same dubious aura as their son.

Unfortunately, Lucius cannot dredge up the wherewithal to spill a word of it. Fear of the consequences and the scalding shame drag him into disconcerted silence.

“You look so glum,” he observes, tilting his head in hopes of snatching more of Lucius’s attention. “It’s depressing. This is supposed to be a happy affair.” He heaps some rare cheeses and a bunch of grapes onto his plate. “And after all you’ve endured, it would surprise me if you weren’t famished. Why don’t you eat?”

“I just… can’t find an appetite.”

His amiable front fizzles out.

“Your sullen mood will be the death of you if your sickliness doesn’t end you first!”

Lucius sighs, letting his eyes fall shut and his shoulders sink out of their practiced straightness. “All I want is leave of this place… I’m sure my appetite will regenerate if I only knew I could depart soon.”

“You know that is still not possible. How many times must I repeat myself? You have no home to return to,” he reminds loudly, “and leaving you somewhere alone and undefended in your state would be unconscionable.”

Lucius speaks up. “I do have a home to return to. He may not be a fixed location with walls and a roof, but wherever he is, that is where I consider home.”

Sebastian glances about with a nervous flicker at his family, who is occupied by a rousing tale recounted by the marquess, save for his younger brother, who raises an irritated eyebrow at their spat. Shooting the same look back, Sebastian redirects his scowl to Lucius and turns it deadly serious. 

“You have no idea where he is now.” His voice lowers. “And I recall you suggesting earlier that he would stop at nothing to retrieve you. Was that a stroke of baseless desperation? Where could he be now, I wonder? Surely not dead, I hope.” His eyes narrow in a diabolical glee. “Mercenaries keep risky professions, don’t they?”

Lucius makes his loaned robes blush deeper if solely by comparison to the pallid hue his face takes on.

“Well, it won’t do anyone good to worry. Besides, the show is about to begin. For the sake of your health, cast thoughts of him aside.”

As it turns out, he is right. A pegasus knight mounted sideways in her saddle blows on a horn to herald the hall’s silence. She waves enthusiastically, beaming. 

“Glorious House Khathelet and all in attendance! We are greatly humbled to receive invitation to perform for you this evening! We ran into a bit of bandit trouble down the road here, but with a few surprise tricks up our sleeves, we managed to arrive in most pieces! The only pieces we have missing are some gold ones, sadly.”

The audience gets a bit of a chuckle out of her as they raise their applause.

“But now, without further ado, we present to you The Blood Pact.” She stands on the saddle, bows artfully, and lets her ‘pegasus’ do the exiting for her at a steady gait. She never fully leaves, but parks at the very edge of the area designated as the stage.

“This should be good,” Sebastian whispers as though pretending Lucius can find it in him at all to be enthused. No matter how stellar the performance might be, it will forever be colored unfavorably by his captivity.

Backstage, Raven’s balled fists clench and unclench under his cloak. A fellow raven moves to impart some knowledge to him in a low voice.

“Here is where the king and queen show up on the minstrel’s gallery.” The mercenary nods and clenches. “You can hear the premise being introduced- a peaceful but poor island kingdom of birds who can shapeshift into people, kind of like the dragon tribes of old before The Scouring.” He doesn’t have much time to explain, because a flurry of dusky plumage prances out of the passage. Raven bristles.

“Oh, sorry! I think I was getting carried away by the details. Our time is up. Here, just follow our leads like we practiced and you’ll earn your acting wings.” He jabs him in the side with a bony elbow. Raven groans and steels himself.

“The things I have to do for you, Lucius…” he grumbles as an aside.

The area below the platform fills with a flock of interpretive black bird costumes, leaping in on the scene in a dancelike mimicry of flight, showing off the wingspans of their feathery capes. Raven is, disturbingly, among them.

“The kingdom held tenuous relations with others, especially those of people like you and I who have no plumage or claws to shed for skin,” explains the pegasus knight.” As crafty as corvids are reputed to be, animals are still animals, and humans can still outwit them. However, our story’s king has taken a desperate measure.”

The narrator cedes speaking to the king, perched on high as he regards the citizens below.

“What greater joy for a king? To gaze upon his subjects in times of peace, unmarred by the blemish of war.” His queen clutches onto his big, feathery arm, trying to seek his eyes with hers.

“My dear, I know of none, none save the joy it would bring me to see their king at ease. And as such, I find myself only halfway happy.”

He turns to her. “I sense deeper meaning lurking behind those words.”

“You pride yourself on how wonderful it is to see your people preserved from war, but you sense something ill foreboding, don’t you? Your smile no longer reaches your eyes. I would know what war wages inside of your breast if you would only let me.”

The king jerks away. “It is nothing but a skirmish in here. Yes, the people are protected, but I am still counting down the days before our people slowly start to perish from starvation. These seasons have not been kind to the crops; the fish have been slimy bones… We all know how lucrative raiding those Siennese cargo ships has been. Recently, I’ve been bound by contract not to interfere with their ships, but O, how my starving people could be nourished back to health…!”

“Could it be you are thinking of breaking that oath?”

“We ravens aren’t known for our noble conduct. Rather, we have always been crafty and adaptable, pulling whichever strings will result in survival. So long as we can get away with it, we’ll sneak off with the treasure and steal away as if we were never there, the feared darkwing corsairs without ships.”

The king and queen continue to make the motions as though discussing something at length while the narrator forwards the story. Amid the other moving bodies and the long trestle tables, it is difficult to assess for sure whether that asshole with the green hair is Sebastian or one of the other several snooty nobles, and he must keep up his act of suffering before his time to shine.

“What the king didn’t know was that by defying the will of the empire, he had already begun setting in motion the countdown of the people’s days…”

The backs of the king and queen turn away from the hall. Electricity surges through Raven’s nerves as he watches one of his fellow commoners rise to the platform. He stands tall, croaks, and wavers to the ground, submitting one hoarse line of dialogue.

“Why does… this death grip me anon…?”

Nobody notices his demise onstage, and Raven was directed explicitly not to care about it, either. However, at this specific juncture he’s instructed to make his move.

The narrator goes forth. “The next day brings two more inexplicable deaths…”

One raven dies with a dramatic flourish, bidding his family an untimely farewell. The other is a tad delayed, but only because he cannot help breaking character for what he notices among the crowd. There, situated at the high table on the dais, the man he wants to shove sharp things into has his location confirmed, but right next to him, even when he’s stuffed in unfamiliar clerical finery, even on the opposite end of the hall, his angelic face framed by a sun-soaked cascade of blond is unmistakable. And he looks so heart-crushingly miserable. He forgets his lines for a moment before he realizes he doesn’t even have any.

Seeing him there without being able to touch him or speak to him or reach him with his promising presence drives him crazy. He can’t stand there dumbfounded forever; he’s got to act fast, but in the heat of the moment, he remembers the advice given to the little empress and decides a little improv might be okay. He stutters his life force to a gradual end, a hand at his throat as he throws the other to the air, pointed vaguely toward Lucius.

“Urk… my beloved, Lu-Lu… Lu… I will… follow you at last…”

He dies. But Lucius is wide awake now.

His sights are locked on the fallen raven with his unkempt coppery red hair, the shape of his legs in those tights, but most strikingly… had his lovelorn heart been deceiving him, or did he catch the familiar sound of Raven’s voice? It’s so suspicious! He replays the line over and over in his head as the death count rises on stage. Lu… Lu… Perhaps it’s also his desperation playing tricks on him, but that’s definitely the first syllable of his name. Why else would he say it if not a coincidence? The more certain he becomes that the line was not an act but a secret message, the healthier his face glows, his eyes twinkling and cheeks rising by command of his unabashed smile.

Raven indeed! He can’t help but giggle in the all-consuming relief and at how ridiculous this surprising turn of events is. Never before did he expect to see Raven in a play, and as part of a traveling theater troupe no less! How did he ever manage? He’ll never hear the end of his teasing as long as he lives. If only he could run up to him and kiss him!

“Something funny about this, Lucius?” a humorless voice murmurs against his ear.

His happiness dims. Oh, Sebastian… All the relief drains from him to be substituted for a cold dread. He pretends to focus more on the anguish of the raven king instead.

“It’s just… the acting, my lord… You must admit, some of it is quite overdone.” He smiles, flicking his eyes at all ravens to disguise the true aim of his stare. Sebastian hums.

“Yes, I can agree. It’s as though some of them have never been on stage in their lives.” Sebastian’s gaze is so penetrating Lucius swears he can feel it pierce the back of his skull. The king’s wife and children die alongside the black heaps scattered across the stage and he weeps, cursing his error and crying ‘no more!’

Eventually, he, too, dies of the blood curse, and the young prince takes his place as the new king. All the ravens revive at once to surreptitiously migrate off the stage to clear it out. Lucius pins his eyes on Raven as he leaves, savoring the sight of him. He watches him glance back. Raven catches Lucius’s eyes on him and smiles to himself, foolishly pleased by such a trivial token of attention from him, then resumes being incognito as he’s set free from the humiliating chore of theatre.

Thinking back on it, his extra line was kind of embarrassing and a risk he shouldn’t have taken, but so satisfying to connect with Lucius after the hell spent fearing the worst for him. The gears of his mind snap to the course his next moves, how he’ll quickly arm himself and sneak off to... well, there’s the problem. Lucius being in attendance punches a hole in his plan. It means he won’t chance upon him during his stealth mission. Not ideal, but at least his infiltration was a success. As much as he hates to acknowledge it, killing Sebastian outright might not be the best of ideas, especially in his own castle, but oh how his arm aches to swing at him for whatever he did to give Lucius such a face.

If he’s reading Sebastian’s slimy intentions correctly, he probably means to keep him as company against his will— at least for some time, so long as he never grows tired of him or he doesn’t put up too much resistance. Or, given the change of wardrobe, Sebastian has finally managed to mold him into part of his retinue. Lucius isn’t stupid enough to provoke him inordinately in situations like these, gifted with a saint’s tolerance for mistreatment, but cursed to endure disproportionate suffering whenever someone does. Contemplating such straits makes him want to throw caution to hell and bust back into the hall to rip Lucius right out of his clutches while an entire noble family mobilizes to detain him. 

Yeah, not smart. He’s locking that part of his brain behind a door, while the more rational portion tries to deliberate past the screaming on the other side. 

He goes straight for the caravan’s supplies and picks out the best sword prop he can find, which isn’t good, and then takes to prowling the corridors. He’s no stranger to these lavish layouts, so he has a pretty good idea how to find the tower he’s after. The best things he can do right now is scope out the castle for future escape routes and position himself in a place of hiding where he might be more likely to chance upon Lucius or Sebastian. This won’t be a simple task, and it might take time he doesn’t want to sacrifice, but his failure will doom his loved one. He can’t be sloppy.  


* * *

  
Once the scenes change to present an older version of the new king and his inherited dilemma, Sebastian’s tension finally gives way. He rises from his seat, earning critical glances from his family. 

“I must be excused for a moment,” he hurries to explain. “I have something… personal I need to take care of. My apologies for interrupting.” Before anyone can throw a word of protest in, he slips away and disappears behind a doorway. Nobody sighs, but the mood of the atmosphere feels like one.

“So insolent,” his mother mutters. “He’s probably up to no good.” Others nod and resume watching the staged action without much concern for his tired antics. 

Lucius, on the other hand, can’t pay attention at all. He stares at the entranceway through which Sebastian made his exit and tries to tamper down the fright that creeps up his spine. Sebastian must have noticed the same thing. If he’s leaving, it can only be for one reason…

The thought of chasing after him sends a throb of pain through his leg, and his mind and gut to reel in tandem. He’d never make it if he wanted to stop Sebastian, and even if he caught up to him, what can he possibly do to rail against him when he feels so limp?

Nonetheless, thoughts bone and blade clashing in scarlet explosions possess his mind, and if he can’t stop bloodshed at the source, there’s still something he can do about it. Resolve empowered, he wills his weak body into a gentle pivot once his company is collectively distracted by the raven king’s daring retribution to rescue the heron princess locked away in a gruesome tower. Using the mental breadcrumbs he left behind when Sebastian carried him here, he struggles away to reach the cozy confines of his prior prison. It’s so much harder in practice that he topples to his hands and knees, but he miraculously manages not to attract any attention with his ungainly spill. On the bright side, it doesn’t hurt nearly as much as he thought it should. His main battle is with the swirls and tumbles of his vision, the featherlight bonelessness he envisions himself possessing, but in spite of his challenges, he presses on and leaves the great hall behind him.

_Please, St. Elimine, I beg of you with all that I am… Please keep my dearest friend safe from harm._  


* * *

  
Each step he takes is absorbed by the empty stone walls and thrown out tenfold, announcing his presence in echoes wherever he roams. It’s unnerving, a testament to how deserted the castle is compared to how it must usually be. However, it goes both ways: members of Marquess Khathelet’s household passing by don’t bother to hush their approaches at all, so with Raven’s ears wide open, he can detect them coming before they turn corners if the acoustics are right. None of them have any reason to be tiptoeing about. Every time he breaches a new area, he always keeps his eyes peeled for any convenient hiding spaces: columns, vacant rooms, statues. The grace of night shrouds his getup, cloaked in darkness as though fashioned with his aim in mind. 

He continues suspecting fate’s generous handouts to be the work of divine providence until he runs into someone who has all reason to conceal his approach. The corner he rounds places him within meters of his regal foe. Both of them spring into guarded positions at once, Raven with his shitty sword, Sebastian cocking his spear at the ready.

“Aren’t you a little far from the stage, _raven?_ ”

He lunges for his unarmored breast, to which Raven whirls out of the way and counters with a strike of his sword, only to be thwarted by the superior length of the spear’s block. The iron in his blade shudders at the impact, traveling through his wrists. He grits his teeth.

“I have no patience for banter!” They disengage; Raven closes in again, Sebastian thrusts his weapon down upon him but Raven’s advance had been a ruse. He uses the time won to hack into his soft gut but gets hard hip instead. Nonetheless, Sebastian cringes at the blow and backs up, readying his spear for another blow.

“We’ll make haste, then!” Their weapons collide, but not in the nick of time as Sebastian’s spear overrides Raven’s in speed and strength and pierces him through the shoulder. “This time, your death won’t be just a ham-handed act!”

“Ngh!” he chokes out, stopping the wound with his empty hand. Sebastian gets another hit into his ribs as Raven backs off, mitigating the damage with his retreat but germinating another bloom of pain. The lordling regales his small victories with a hearty laugh.

“I thought you were made of tougher stuff than this!” 

The mercenary’s inured to worse pain and livid at this man for countless more substantial reasons than petty provocation, so he powers through it with a primal roar and dashes in to cut him down. Sebastian strikes again, but Raven dodges, grabs his lance with more force than Sebastian thought he’d have, and wrenches him toward his blade. It sinks through his body. The corridor trembles in screaming agony.

“I’m not here to end your life, but I’m really itching to,” breathes Raven. “Hand over Lucius, or I might settle with a limb or two.”

His laugh is much hoarser now, his voice rattling against the conviction he aims to deliver. “You chase the lion into his den and expect to come out of this unscathed?!” He kicks Raven off him and jerks his spear free, then launches another missed stab. “It’s not just me you’re up against!” Stab; miss. “I have power you can only reminisce about; I can send an entire squadron against you!” Stab; feathers. “Have you put to death!” Stab; miss. “Or would you prefer to be locked away, left to ponder what might be happening to Lucius as he succumbs to me?”

Raven’s face darkens beneath his mask. “Then maybe I ought to kill you where I stand. It’s easier than keeping you alive. I’ll come for Lucius myself.”

“And if you do that, my family will come for you.”

It vexes him, but he’s right. Nevertheless, yielding is not an option. “Either way, it will end the same, won’t it?”

They exchange blows and dodges and feints and parries, a pageant of whirling capes, clashing metal and the iron scent of fresh blood. They strike like lightning and move just as fast, but in experience alone, one dominates. 

It would have been more clear-cut a victory if his weapon could do the same.

About to deliver a decisive blow, Raven swings for his skull to split it like a ripe melon when Sebastian is brought to his knees, only to have him fling his spear out to block it just before the end. The refined steel of its shaft cleaves the rudimentary blade in two, leaving a jagged end just before the crossguard. The remainder plops softly against the carpet, a dingy shard of forged iron. Sebastian’s lips peel into a wild grin. He whacks Raven in the chest and sends him against the wall hard enough to stun him, then advances on his prey.

“A pity you brought cheap metal to our duel! I thought we could prolong our practice session, but…” He plunges the spear through him, and Raven isn’t swift enough to avoid the force of its sharp head ripping through his chest. He convulses with a violent, wet cough, squeezing his eyes shut and dropping his neutered sword’s hilt in favor of scrunching in on himself. 

“Oops! I really didn’t mean to hit you there, but you wouldn’t stay still,” teases the jade-haired noble as he twists the blade ever so slightly. Raven heaves a sharp, burbling cry, dark liquid oozing from beneath the beak of his mask down his chin. Sebastian kicks it up over his head, revealing the creases of his anguish-drawn face. He cracks an eye open and directs a dim, indignant glare at him.

“Don’t talk, or you’ll waste the vestiges of your precious energy,” advises Sebastian with the same mock-light tone. “Use it wisely. Maybe you should run to your companion’s arms? He might be able to save you, but more likely give you a comfortable place to die, except… oh, that’s right! You put him through so much pain yesterday that I doubt he has it in him to walk very far.” He yanks it out of his body, which creates a gushing font of agony to shoot through him. He yells and clutches his chest. Sebastian crosses his arms and hums, cocking his head as though to admire his work from a slightly different angle.

“I know how comfortable that place is, myself. I’ve died there before, but it was only a small death.”

Raven’s brain churns and stops. “…What…”

Delighted by his play on words and Raven’s subsequent reaction, he brushes the very tip of his spear against his inner thigh. The mercenary winces at the thought of how awful a stab directed at that area would be, but eschews that visceral self-preservation mode for higher concerns and meanings. Vitriol spews from his aura, and he uses both eyes to burn his outrage into the loathsome figure smirking above him. It’s enough to revive the willpower to get up, though it’s a stilted, stumbling attempt, and Sebastian just twists his spear around and jabs him in the gut with it. His body disobeys his fiery intent and sends him back to the floor.

He laughs, and decorates his tone with an imitation of Raven’s voice. “You’re lucky I didn’t use the sharp end! Hahaha!”

“You… miserable… shit-licking dastard… “ He coughs, the force of it draining his strength further and sending a spray of his rapidly depleting life force out. 

How can somebody feel so heavy, and yet so light? Heavy, burdened by a hatred that seared at a similar intensity when forged for Ostia, but so light he may as well ascend from this plane altogether, half of him lifting from the ground in a dizzy, upward spiral that worsens when he lets his eyes close? The differing weights of his situation clash within, and the weight of knowing that death is squeezing him out of his own body crushes him. More than ever he needs to be alive, needs to avenge the light of his life and salvage him from this mortifying darkness, but he just can’t, and that alone damns his soul to its final state of unrelenting, unfulfilled torment.

He lets the lightness uplift him.

Dying, dying at last, that is, is a strange experience. It starts out suffocating and final, and then you’re slowly released from the bonds of that throbbing agony, carried away by a soothing, uplifting embrace, an ethereal one that surrounds you in its gentle resolution. He wants to sink in it. It reminds him of a healing staff’s magic. It’s a placating thought, reminiscent of two people who mean most to him, who he’s leaving behind in this world: Priscilla riding up to him in the midst of war-torn land with her staff poised and her expression drawn in uneasy kindness, and when Lucius advanced battle class and learned to wield one of his own, the serene compassion that seemed to emanate from his very being as he attended his wounds. His heart throbs in one massive ache and along with it his determination to amend their disastrous circumstances jumpstarts him. He flings his eyes open. 

When he does, he really _is_ bathed in the gentle glow of healing magic, his grievous injuries closing up. Sebastian’s thrown aghast. He tosses his head in one direction, then the next, and all the playfulness in his face melts away in lieu of hardened suspicion. Raven doesn’t waste any time rising to sock him across the face.

“You-!!” Yeah, it was a bad move to reenter combat like it was a bar brawl than a battle with an armed lord, but he’s righteously rankled and can’t stand another second that Sebastian isn’t getting beaten down. Instead, he tries a new tactic now that he’s in close quarters: wrenching the spear out of his hands. 

It fails, but they’re locked in a mighty tug-of-war. Both combatants bear their teeth and lock stares, flaring red and lurid green, both fists bolted to the shaft. Amid their grunts and snarls, the clop of stone being tread upon by more than a pair of feet grows ever present. Sebastian cocks a victorious grin against Raven’s bared teeth. Raven takes advantage of his stroke of hubris by smashing his heel into his shin, and he successfully steals custody of the spear.

It’s an unfamiliar weapon to him, but anyone with arms and a brain can make use of it. From beyond the corner he never traveled, guards show up, two of them securing a limp passenger donned in pale red and glittering gold, using all he has to clutch a physic staff to himself like a mother protecting her child. His head is cast down in depletion, curtained by the spill of his bright hair. Raven forgets himself for a moment, forgets Sebastian. The name tears from his vocal cords like ripping bandages.

“Lucius!!”

He charges for the guards like a feral beast, and though they surmount him in manpower, they cower for a moment before regaining their bearings. Lucius lifts his head enough to offer Raven a tired smile, tries to speak but his voice fails him against the din of rallying cries and shifting steel. The mercenary engages in a fight he’s outnumbered in with a weapon he’s incompetent with, and even with those factors stacked against him banishes a guard to the floor, another on the stairwell, but they gain on him and make a pincushion of him with javelins and lances.

Lucius patches him right up from the arms of the enemy, and he’s at them again.

By this point, however, they confiscate his staff, and what’s worse, Sebastian is behind them now, yanking fistfuls of Lucius’s hair and wrenching his head to the side to expose his neck to the blade of Raven’s broken sword. 

“Drop the weapon!”

It’s enough to force him to desist. He steps away from the four guards who remain and lowers the spear, the other palm splayed out in a show of surrender. It doesn’t satisfy Sebastian.

“I said _drop_!” He presses the implement against his neck; Lucius whimpers mutely, bracing for broken skin. 

“Fine!” It fills the hallway with its clatter as he releases the weapon, but doesn’t move far from it. “You sick madman… What do you want?”

Sebastian chuckles. “You know, I used to be jealous of you. Not so much anymore. Guards! Seize him!” 

They’re immediately upon him. His arms are rendered useless, his neck in a chokehold. Even when demoralized and humiliated this way, his indomitable resolve to take Lucius back won’t be extinguished.

“You used to have such a nice family. That’s what I always thought.” He kisses the top of Lucius’s head. Raven goes ballistic against all reason trying to wrest himself free of the guards, but it’s not enough. Watching him struggle fills Sebastian with triumphant amusement. He lessens the hold on his hair to let his fingers stroke the soft strands, as though savoring his prize. Lucius frowns, unable to move his eyes from Raven, desperation dancing in his eyes.

“P-Please let him go…”

“Breaking into the castle is a capital offense, sweet Lucius,” he croons like he’s too innocent to know any better. “And how in the four corners of Elibe did you manage to get all the way up to my quarters in your abysmal state?”

Lucius smiles, pushing the barest one-note chuckle from his throat. “It must have been… because my pain was soothed earlier. For once, I am glad I trusted you.”

Sebastian huffs, looking like he just crammed a lemon down his throat. He presses the broken weapon a little harder against his neck. “Then trust me when I tell you your companion is almost certainly doomed thanks to your insolence.” 

He swallows thickly. “I… I will purchase his life, if I must…”

“Lucius, no!”

“Oh?” He adjusts his crooked circlet and leans in closer as if to hear him out. “And what price do you think would suffice?”

The acolyte nods his head down in grim understanding. “…Me. My life for his.”

Raven shakes his head like a dog wrenching in chains. “No! You can’t let him have you! _I_ won’t let him!”

Sebastian laughs. “And how won’t you let me right now? Are you unaware of the position you’re in? Try to respect Lucius’s wishes. He’s allowed to make his own choices.”

Firmly, clamping down on rare anger, Lucius replies, “I have no choice, and that is not the fault of Lord Raven. You’re the one who won’t give me one.”

Embittered, Sebastian opts to control his temper by directing his attentions away from Lucius. “So there you have it. Lucius willfully submits his life for yours.” He removes the blade from his neck and releases his hair, Lucius’s neck flopping to the side. “Of course, by ‘submit’, I don’t mean in death. He plans to stay here, as part of House Khathelet. If he decides to break his vow, my new caged bird might have a real reason to croak as I break his neck.”

A tear slips from Lucius’s eyelid. “Your cruelty is truly horrific, Lord Sebastian. St. Elimine would condemn you a thousand times over for your treachery.”

“Silence! He’s the true committer of treachery, sneaking into the castle disguised as a performer to do the work of a thief. Ever the Cornwell, I see.” 

“For someone _you_ stole!” barks Raven. “I swear upon Cornwell’s ashes: you’ll pay for what you’ve done!”

Sebastian chuckles. “To swear upon the ashes of disgrace... Ha! Well, have fun with your cute little revenge ploy while your hands are tied to your feet.” He offers a genial wave with his lips curled up in a cocky slant, and the guards take their cue to ferry him off to the depths of the dungeon. Raven struggles and curses the whole way through, and Lucius’s tears stream heavy down his face as he watches the man he loves depart to a fate of captivity like his.

"You're a monster..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "but where's my delicious blended smoothie," you ask


	8. An Eye for Broken Glass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHOA HEY it's been a while. I had a lot going on this past month, especially related to convention stuff, work, and health-related issues that kept coming up and ruining my life.
> 
> I'm being kind of dramatic, but they really did take a lot out of me! They're mostly under control now. So thanks for sticking around to watch me fly by the seat of my pants in a sleep-deprived frenzy. 
> 
> Oh, yeah, and here are some touchy subjects you might find in this chapter:  
> -more non-consensual touching; not especially graphic but still uncomfortable  
> -slimy behavior......  
> -torture; damn it why  
> -trauma-induced mental health issues, the description of them, and implied stigma  
> -more blood and violence with weapons!  
> -death  
> -bad writing  
> -probably puns, i dunno anymore it's all a blur
> 
> I'm sorry for hurting these boys. They really don't deserve it, but things got out of control and now look what happened. I am in so much pain.

“I think we’ve had quite enough excitement for one night, don’t you think?”

Lucius resists honoring Sebastian’s remark with a single response, won’t grant him so much as eye contact. Could he even bear looking at his face as things are now? The skirmish rages fresh in his mind, heart wounded by being ripped apart from his lifelong companion all over again. The dried streams of tears sticking against his skin attest to that. He maintains a stalwart, icy shield against the orchestrator of his misery. In retaliation, though he detects it, Sebastian feigns an air of obliviousness to his emotional death as he carries his listless form up a cramped, winding stairway to the bedchamber he woke up in. Following shortly behind trudges his messy-haired retainer, the one who played watchman, keeping his eyes cast down at their feet inattentively as they escalate.

Given nothing to bounce off save the echoes of their ascent, Sebastian fills the gap in conversation himself in that faux-casual way he likes to employ. “Of course you’d be unhappy with me. I find that only natural. But I think I might just have to keep reminding you that it is equally natural for me to deal with armed intruders the way that I did. He could have just as easily died, you know. He almost did, if not for you and my show of mercy.”

A boiling flood of resentful replies surges toward the gates of Lucius’s restraint, but he steels himself with honed patience. He can only imagine how stormy he would roil if he allowed himself to unleash even one word of his present distaste. It may be an impudent child’s game to cease speaking with someone out of odium, but nothing this wicked man has done warrants treating him to maturity. Besides, if he provokes him just the right way, he has Raven bound up as blackmail, his life hanging by a chain. It’s harrowing to picture him shackled in them, deprived of freedom, comfort, and dignity.

They reach the top of the staircase. “Liam?” His retainer snaps to attention. “Go fetch a healer, will you? He’s all scratched up and could use a bit of care.”

“Yes, milord.” He scrambles off to attend his task. Sebastian cradles Lucius closer and buries his nose in his scalp. He sighs him into his lungs like a drug.

“You are just… so precious to me. So, so precious. We've already been through so much... I wish I knew how to make you understand.”

In a strange twist, abiding Sebastian becomes more manageable undertaking with Raven’s life on the line. He could be kissed and fondled a thousand times more when the stakes rest upon the shoulders of someone so precious to him. Enduring suddenly embodies a potent purpose. He’s toyed with lightly for the spell of a few minutes in the privacy of his room, his retainer waiting just outside the door for his master to emerge. It’s revolting, even to the extent of a mere prod, to feel strands of his hair tickle his face, hear his breath hitch when he rediscovers how soft his lips are. Lucius copes by focusing his spirit on his ambitions, turning the rest of himself to stone. He’s tucked his spirit away before, and he knows how to do it again.

Discouraged, Sebastian pulls away, hands resting upon the bedside as one feature lures his attention. Sullenly he tries to coerce Lucius to change the way he looks at him with the plea in his gaze. It fails. Sullen morphs into resentful, sharpening and sharpening until he shoots a hand up to strike, but falters when Lucius shuts his eyes, prepared to brook it. His hand trembles when he withdraws it, his frustration unable to seek an outlet. He adjusts his belt, then steps back. His face toggles between different shades of displeasure. “After what you went through, you should just… rest. And put that fire out of your eyes! It doesn’t become you. I will leave Liam to tend to you while I return to inform my father of what happened. But first, I have a prisoner that needs some breaking in.”

“You will not lay a hand on him,” commands Lucius, voice firmer than Sebastian has ever heard. The lord pauses, looks thoughtful, and then smiles, the corners of it affected by a sly edge.

“As you wish, Lucius." He smirks. "I will not use my hands.”

He leaves Lucius to the devices of Liam and the caretaker. Once the stony resonance of footsteps dwindles beyond earshot, the cleric files in while his retainer presses his back to the door as he shuts it politely. Lucius extinguishes his fire once he has no one to scorch it with and buries his focus somewhere on the floor, sending most of his thoughts Raven’s way, some flying to the heavens in frenzied prayer. He shuts the others out, even as the healer makes a steady, delicate approach, keeping a distance between them like she’s afraid her proximity might break the monk.  


* * *

  
A heavy pounding in his skull rouses his consciousness to the strain of his arms pulled taut behind his back, strung from a high point. He twists his wrists; the rope punishes his skin for it. Dimly, Raven scrapes together awareness of his surroundings, which are dingy, smelly, and cramped. A heavy chain dangles from his neck. He unfolds his legs only to find that they are bound to themselves, his calves tied to his thighs. What’s worse, he’s stuck in a crouch, his ankles aching from being suspended just barely enough to touch the ground. His shoulders ache to an incomprehensible degree. 

When did he lose consciousness, anyway? Raven lifts his heavy eyelids to view a door like a cage, where he’s rigged in ropes and chains in a small cell just for him. It must have been while he struggled a little too hard against the guards who carried him off. As it turns out, when you kick someone in the face as you’re getting hauled off to the dungeons, you’re liable to get your clock knocked out. Irritated, he tests the limits of his bonds a second time, trying to wrench his legs apart and wriggle his fingers to grasp at ties, only it doesn’t work. The more he meets with futility, the more frustrated he becomes.

“Damn it…”

His stomach is a sour, plunging void that drags his head down with it, leaving it light and foggy. The burden of being conscious is how the more sense he attains, the more aware he is of how his fresh stab wounds bite. And then, his mind slips into tormented thoughts about how time slipped away from him, and Lucius could be under the sway of Sebastian’s corrupt desires, all while he’s rendered useless at a time Lucius needs him not to be. That, perhaps, is the most torturous thought of them all. Against his better judgment he expends a great deal of depleted energy trying to wrest free again, even though it proves time and time again to be in vain.

This can’t be how it ends!

Wracking his brain for other ideas, the dungeon pounds in time with his head. They’re footsteps, and they’re growing louder. He lifts his head, chain jingling. Shadows bend with the encroaching torchlight. He awaits the visitor with hopes fizzled out in advance, because the only person he would like to see right now wouldn’t have a healthy gait like that.

Sure enough, it’s his worst enemy. 

Sebastian cocks a self-satisfied grin his way, lacing his fingers around a bar on the door. As much as lifting his head strains his neck, Raven refuses to lower his smoldering gaze. The marquess’s son chuckles to himself, amusement dancing in his flame-licked eyes.

“The pride you wear looks pretty foolish on you, given your unflattering circumstances.”

“You’re a fucking lunatic,” he growls, voice ground into hoarse gravel. “I bet seeing me like this really gets you off, huh?”

“You have no idea. They did a fine job tying you up. You look just like a bird, perched like that with your wings spread. It’s almost artistic.”

“Just shut up.” He coughs to reinforce the diluted authority of his voice. “Even like this, I have more right to pride than you. Your level is so low that I’d have to look even more compromising and ridiculous… to match the lowlife I see peering in on me.”

His face darkens, undermining his widening smile. “Is that what you think? That _I’m_ the lowlife?” He drops his torch, fiddles with the lock on the door, and pushes it open with a rusty creak. He steps in, blocking the soft light. 

“I don’t know any other way to put it,” continues Raven with a generous stockpile of vitriol he’s eager to fire on Sebastian. “You play around with an important family heirloom, manage to lose it to thieves, and to avoid owning up to it, you hire some sellswords under the table to take care of it for you.” 

This alone is enough to goad the lord into smashing the brunt of his heel into his head. Audacious though he may be, the pain drives a sharp scream out of the mercenary, his head forced down. Sebastian yanks the chain to force it back up. Raven’s vision is like murky, swirling static until it fades back into focus on his prior client’s seething face. 

“You know nothing of my situation. But I can amend that for you, if you’d like.” He clenches the metal tight enough for his knuckles to pop. “Give you a taste of what it feels like to be me…”

Raven rolls his eyes before settling back into his leer, far too indignant to stop there in spite of his current vulnerability, not when he hasn’t gotten to the real reason his blood boils. “That’s real rich. _Your_ pain. I bet you haven’t even stopped to think about the kind of pain your new _consort_ must be feeling right now.”

“He will understand me. He may not now, but in time, he will come to understand and forgive the transgressions I have wrought upon him… That is the type of person he is, no?”

“Do you hear how delusional you are? You think it’s… _okay_ to abuse him, abuse his kindness because you think he’ll… _forgive_ you for it?” His voice shakes. “You think that makes it okay? That doesn’t make it okay, you fuck!”

Raven’s insolence earns him another swift kick, this time to the jaw. He chokes on the blow, and consequently thereafter, the taste and stench of blood erupting in his mouth. He can’t even force his eyes open; the agony is overwhelming, and he groans sharply. Sebastian snorts.

“That should shut you up for a while,” he remarks through his teeth. He releases his hold on the chain, and Raven’s head bobs back down with it to hang. Dark drops hit the dungeon floor in soft pats. It puts Sebastian in a slightly better mood. He starts to circle around his prisoner, folding his hands behind his back as he admires his pitiful position. Raven gurgles and hacks, well and truly unable to speak.

“You have such a fiery spark in you. It’s quite inspirational. I just wonder how long until it fizzles out.” He reaches his hand up, and a cranking sound is heard.

As if he weren’t coping with enough, Raven feels himself leave the ground completely. The only part of him that earns some relief is his ankles; the rest of him might just snap, his arms ready to be ripped out of their sockets. He emits a loud, burbling groan. Sebastian chuckles.

“My bird has achieved liftoff. I’ve never seen one so unhappy to be airborne before.”

All he can do is grunt and groan in massive discomfort, pulled away unceremoniously from any coherent thought save the unadulterated feelings of rage and pain. Sebastian plucks one of the bigger feathers off his train of tail plumage and gives it a cursory examination. 

“Soon you’ll be begging for release, even if it means death is the only way I can grant you that. But dear Lucius won’t allow you that reprieve, will he?” He takes the tip of the feather’s shaft and trails it down Raven’s side, down to his buttock. “He has no idea how much he will come to regret that. Up close, you’re not half bad to look at. Maybe that’s what he sees in you. I can’t imagine there being much else. You’re not very smart, bereft of status, lacking in charisma, severely rude…” He applies more force, jabbing him hard enough to puncture a hole in his tights, his flesh. Raven yowls in protest, tensing in response and making being suspended more painful than it already was. “Oh, and a terrible actor.”

“H-Having… fun… back there?” 

Sebastian drags the pinion, drawing a red line across his leg, which rips his tights in its wake. “Yes, actually. I’ve never used blood as ink before. I hope you don’t mind I play around with it for a little while. Maybe I could write you a message? If it stays around as scar tissue, that would be endlessly amusing, don’t you think?”

Ravens spits out blood indignantly. A tooth clatters out alongside the spray. “Your idea of amusing… is stupid. Ow!”

Sebastian cackles as he sets about practicing his penmanship on Raven’s body. “It’s a good thing you’re all tied up so I can keep my canvas still. You’re quivering a little, and that by itself is annoying.”

“Is this… your idea of torture? Because… it hurts about as much as… trudging through a blackberry thicket.”

“What was that?” He exerts more force on Raven’s skin, coercing a spurt of “ink”. “You want me to gouge your eyes out instead? I was hoping to save that for later, but if you’re _that_ bored already...”

“Urgh… No thanks.” In his position, the threat is a little more ominous, so he decides to scale back on pushing his tormentor’s buttons. If he wants to get out of here alive somehow, he’d prefer to keep his vision, or else he really won’t see freedom ever again. Or Lucius, for that matter. Just how much longer does he have to endure? He forces himself not to think on it too hard.

“I’m glad we see eye to eye, then.” He releases the pen, then bursts into a wild spree of unabashed laughter, to which Raven finds unreservedly unamusing. He’s too busy wishing this astronomical pull on his arms would relent, and contemplates submitting even a little bit of self-respect by begging, if only to encourage the madman in charge of making his stay “interesting” to lay off a little. The anguish is unbearable. He starts to wonder if he would actually prefer giving Sebastian some perverse rush of glee for successfully putting a dent in his pride to dislocating his shoulders. Whatever he finds so funny back there he’s sure won’t tickle a single laugh out on his end.

“Could… Could you just…”

Sebastian sighs to abate his giggle fit. “Yes? Are you asking me for something?”

“Just… set me back down, alright?”

Naturally, he’s not so quick to fulfill that request. He’s here to gloat and congratulate himself for pushing Raven to the brink. “So quickly? I guess you’re just not used to this kind of treatment, now are you? It’s much worse than being stabbed and sliced in the heat of battle. It takes a much bigger man to survive ordeals worse than death. I can’t respect anyone who has never dealt with it. They can never understand.”

“What… do you think you’re proving, here? You expect me to… feel sorry for you?” 

“No. No, if anything, you should be feeling sorry for yourself. Locked away here by the will of your most cherished friend – or am I correct in assuming, your boyfriend? And for your impudence, you get your just desserts. You should have never trespassed on Castle Khathelet grounds, you denigrate sellsword.” He yanks on his chain again, and this time, it’s more anguish than ever before. A sick pop is heard through Raven’s body. Even Sebastian winces.

“Oof. That was a bit harsh. My foul.” 

“Why are… you so messed up?” groans Raven with unfocused eyes glazed over in pain.

“I’m glad you asked. Unfortunately, I have a lot on my shoulders, and I don’t particularly like dredging up the past.” After what feels like a miniature eternity, Sebastian lets Raven back down. It’s not as rewarding as Raven craves it to be, but it’s not as brutally excruciating, either. He takes some solace in the balls of his feet touching the stone floor again. Sebastian turns around, his cape trailing behind him as though to signal a kind of finality.

“I myself had an eventful day, so it would do me some good to relax.” He turns his head to Raven with a puckish grin. “With my new company.”

“Good luck with that,” the mercenary retorts hoarsely. “He… hates you.”

“Oh? Would you rather spend some quality time with me, Crow?”

“If it means sparing him of you for a while… then be my guest.”

“You know what? Your offer is tempting, but I think we both know which will torment you more. It must be agonizing, having only a vague idea what will go on behind closed doors...”

Raven lifts his head at last, the face of a demon baring his teeth at him. “You…!”

“As I thought. You can’t bear it. Well, as much as I treasure him, you’re not missing much. He smells nice, he is exquisitely soft, but he’s not very… receptive yet. And have you ever seen him spiral into one of those crazy, hair-raising spectacles?”

“Get back here!” he roars, struggling in his ropes and disregarding the pain in his fury. “Just poke my eyes out already! Spit on me, kick me, cut my ears off, set that fire under my ass; I was expecting a little more fanfare out of an extravagant piece of shit like you!” 

This seething act forces peals of hollering laughter to pour from Sebastian, who about buckles over at the animated display. “I can not _believe_ you just asked me to do those things to you. So forward! You make yourself hard to resist.”

“Then come and get me!” 

His peals of laughter wane to a murmured chuckle muffled beneath his hand. “Right. I think, for now, I will have more fun imagining _you_ spiral out of control for the rest of the night. Farewell, you stupid turkey, and let your dull imagination entertain you where I can’t.” 

As Sebastian turns his back to him, Raven unleashes a landslide of cursing and insults, jabbering away like a furious black parrot. Once the door shuts, he stops spitting rancorous words and directs his heated glare to the dirty floor.

Left to himself all over again, he has nothing to divert his mind from pummeling into hideous flashes of waking nightmares. Disturbing visions of his lover ravished by someone so vile and careless as this shitlord beleaguer him senseless. Most harrowing of all is the recollection of Lucius’s animalistic episode of gutwrenching terror under a touch that was meant to consummate love, not greed. How he trembled in abject horror even when he liked to think he was someone he should feel safe around, their foundation of trust solidified by years and familiarity. If that was how he reacted to _him_ , then just how wracked with fright must he be when someone he should be rightly afraid of _attacks_ him with it? 

It’s intolerable to consider. He’d much rather be beaten senseless until he couldn’t feel anything for the rest of his life than picture Lucius violated, scared, and tolerating it all because he thinks it saved his worthless life.

His thoughts are interrupted by a faint chink. Slowly, he lifts his head. In his dazed vision, he can make out a small form in the darkness, much too small to be a normal adult. It’s strange, especially when he didn’t remember hearing the door open since Sebastian departed. He squints.

“Who…?”

The pipsqueak voice unravels the mystery. “I told you I knew of a secret passage. But you didn’t listen to me, and now look what’s happened.”

Raven’s face falls back into its flat, grumpy norm. “You again? I found my own way in. I didn’t need your help for that.”

The roguish boy smirks, grasping the bars of his prison. “Oh, yeah. That ended well for you! Ha ha!”

He lowers his eyelids tetchily. “Shut up.”

“So?” He taps the iron bar with his index finger. “You gonna ask for my help now, or what?”

Raven can’t bring himself to say anything. Just scowl.

“Hanging there like a dead bird at the market, and you’re _still_ too proud to let me help?”

As resistant to his help as he’d been earlier, Raven finds himself in a bit of a bind; he can’t be picky about how he makes his rebound, and this thief’s serendipitous appearance is a blessing he can’t afford to have any qualms with. “I’ve had enough mockery. Less mouthing off and more helping. Got it?”

He brightens up. “I knew you’d come around!”

He crams his lockpick inside the lock to his cell, jiggling it around a bit until he pries the gated door open. As rankled as Raven is, this kid sneaking in to deliver him his freedom fills him with promise. He’d pay him with all his earnings and the clothes off his back for this if that’s what he demanded, but he makes no unbridled show of his lifted mood.

“Fantastic.” He twists his arms around uselessly. “The sooner you cut me out of these, the happier I’ll be.”

The kid laughs, bending as he looks him in the eyes with bold playfulness.“You don’t look like you COULD make a happy face!”

Sure enough, Raven’s face is stuck in displeasure. “What did I say about mouthing off?”

“Hehe. Sorry, sorry! I’ll get to work right away.” He whips out a knife and slides it beneath the rope binding one of his legs together. It snaps with a couple of sawing motions. “Wow. Ooh. Ow. You look like you took a real beating.”

“That’s called torture. What does it look like? I had a tea party?”

“Oh, gnarly…” He examines the floor with a wrinkled nose. “You even lost a tooth? Brutal!” He quickly returns to the matter at hand, nicks at the next ropes, and then makes his way over to the one causing Raven the most grief. Before he does anything, he starts hooting in laughter again. “Wish I could read! He carved a message on your butt!” 

Raven actually manages to kick him like a horse. It’s not enough to deter the boy, particularly since it wasn’t very powerful, and also, it kind of smarted because he used the affected gluteal region. “Why are you always so violent toward children, mister?” He flicks the knife through those ties, too. Arms liberated, Raven gratefully sends them forward again, but groans in pain at just how much his upper body smarts. It’s so much that he crumples to the ground in an agonized heap, wincing as his muscles protest.

“Ugh… G-Give me a moment…”

“We don’t really have time for a moment,” his liberator notes, crossing his arms and peering down at Raven’s crumpled form. “You’ve gotta get outta here, and fast.”

He coughs, wiping the drying blood from his chin. “I’m not… leaving without Lucius.”

“You’re not in any shape to go rescuing him, are you?” The little thief rolls his eyes in the most dramatic sweep he can summon and shakes his head. “Geez; you muscleheads are all the same. Be smart about this!”

“I’m. NOT. Leaving without Lucius.” He raises himself to a kneel, wishing he didn’t tremble so much so he could prove his point better. “Do you understand? Everything I’ve just done will be for nothing.”

“That’s not my fault.” He glances behind himself before suggesting, “Why don’t you escape through the secret passage I’m gonna show you, recover, and then sneak back inside when you’re better? It’ll be easy now that you have a way to get back in any time you please.”

“Yes. Yes, rationally speaking, that does sound like a good plan. But… I can’t let Lucius stay here for even a minute longer.” With a rickety start, he manages to rise to his feet with more effort than he’d prefer. “He’s suffering. If he lays a finger on him even one more time, it’ll be too much.”

“Well… I _am_ a thief. Why don’t we take out one of the castle guards? He’ll probably have a vulnerary on him or something. Aaaand a weapon. And a disguise!” He giggles. “Not that yours isn’t good or anything. It’s just that you’ve already been busted once before.”

“A helmet would be infinitely more useful than a stupid mask,” grumbles the mercenary. Slowly, carefully, shakily, he ascends to his feet, and then dares to test his throbbing shoulder with a roll, only to wince at the stab of pain and grab his shoulder as though to stop it from agitating him. The way the boy looks at him, he almost suspects he wants to crack some kind of old man joke at his expense, and wow, is he not in the mood for fresh antics. He scowls down at him, recalling his dishonest dealings. “You know… You may be helping me now, but… I haven’t forgotten that one of the reasons he’s suffering is because of you. I don’t care what your reasons are… Anyone who hurts Lucius is my enemy.”

The young thief looks stricken, like Raven tripped a wire leading to deeper feelings. It rests on top of his new frown like an extra layer. “You know… you were right about me earlier. You said I could just steal like a regular thief and make an easier living than helping you out of your mess, right? Well, I wasn’t just bluffing. My actions should be speaking waaay louder than those words I said. Why do you think I’m doing this?”

“…Because you feel bad,” concedes the mercenary. “Okay, I get it. But—”

“But that’s not all. You know why I decided to take on Lord Sebutthead’s job? Because he promised to pay me. A lot. Enough to buy expensive medicine.”

Raven goes quiet, understanding he must be referring to the friend he wanted to help earlier.

“But he didn’t. And I’m mad. I’m gonna rob him blind, and that also means taking that nice monk back.” He exits the cell, pushing the rusty door open wider as though urging Raven to come out. “So it’s not just because I’m being selfless or whatever. I mean, I am, but it’s payback, too.”

He makes his steady egress through the doorway, his gait lopsided at first as he regains sensation in his tingling legs. “As if I couldn’t hate him any more than I already do. That’s it. I’ve decided.” He sucks in a deep breath, glaring down the dark passage as if to set it aflame. “You can take his riches for all I care. I’ll have his life. …What’s your name?”

“Martin,” the thief replies. “I think we’re gonna make a great team.”  


* * *

  
Steady rain taps the window, cloaks the bedroom in gentle noise, and cushions their strained silence. At last, Liam finds it in him to split the wordless distance.

“You know… How my lord conducts himself. I don’t… really agree with it.”

Lucius lifts his eyes open enough to let in a blurry wash of dim lighting and obscuring blond. The cleric tips his chin up to examine his face, her brow creasing and her lips thinning once she beholds his sickly pallor at this proximity. It hurts him a little to inflict such concern in a stranger, but his focus gravitates to Liam, piqued by his statement. The retainer continues, accepting his enfeebled response as cue that he is listening.

“Before I explain myself, I should… probably mention he wasn’t always this way. I mean, he always had this haughty, impish streak, but nothing so severe as this. When he was younger, he used to have friend he adored. She was the daughter of his tutor. The castle halls used to echo with their laughter. This was also a time he got along better with his brother. The three spent their childhood together.”

After all that had happened with Sebastian, Lucius can scarcely drum up any sort of care in his weary soul about what kind of boy he used to be, because nothing could ever excuse the man he has become. His capacity to forgive, once a teeming wellspring, runs bone dry for him. He quietly curses himself for such acrimony, knowing he ought to focus harder on how someone so crooked might still be bent back into shape if given the chance and proper kindness, instead of how utterly wronged he feels. Even if he stepped up to guide him off his dark path, it would never teach him that he wasn’t entitled to his kindness, and as he is now, he’s been so damaged, chased and cornered into such sinister crannies of his past that he feels he doesn’t even have the strength of heart to let someone lean on him. It’s a dilemma he can’t bring himself to let go of, even when he thought his heart had settled in one direction.

“I remember this, too,” adds the cleric, washing his afflicted areas in the healing glow of the staff. “They both loved her dearly. It got worse as they grew.” 

“Yes. This fractured the brotherly camaraderie they once had, and set them scheming against one another for her attention. She was about as lovely as… well.” He cuts himself short, thinking better than to finish his sentence.

Distracted from their conversation, the cleric steadies Lucius by one of his shoulders, setting her staff down by the bed to free up her other arm. “My child; you look like you’re ready to keel over. Are you going to be alright?”

Lucius gives the barest of acknowledging murmurs. “T-to be honest, I think I am soon to reach a breaking point…”

Liam frowns deeply. He peels himself from his perch by the wall to come closer, his arms hanging heavy by his sides. By the way his mouth twitches, it looks like he’s chewing on his words before he figures out how to deliver them. “…I’m truly sorry. I can’t really pretend I’m innocent. I… played a role in tricking you, and that’s tantamount to inflicting this condition upon you.”

The healer twists around to send him a sideways, critical look. He slumps into his shame even more. To his surprise, Lucius smiles just a bit in his downcast bow. “It’s… nice to hear that.”

He grows a little taller. “Pardon?”

“An apology.” His voice languishes weakly. “ F-Forgive me for sounding strange, but, but I’ve been subjected to Lord Sebastian’s treatment for such a miniature eternity that it… does my heart some good to finally hear an apology pushed by sincere feelings. I can’t claim to be an empath, but I can sense that you are not a bad person at heart, and… and you would never personally wish to place me in this type of situation out of your own devices.”

Liam nods, slowly at first but then fervently. “Of course… Of course not.” He ducks his gaze as he picks through thoughts. “I’d just as soon see you out of this place. You really don’t belong in the hands of an immature, vainglorious sadist with more unresolved issues than fleas on a stray dog.”

A rush of wry air leaves his nostrils. He smooths it over with a sigh, transferring to his major worry. “And Lord Raym.. ven… What do you think will become of him?”

“Well, he won’t kill him outright, that I can hang my hat on.” A solemn pause settles between everyone as the subject matter docks at concepts of death. The cleric rises. 

“I think you are malnourished. You’re shaking terribly.” 

“Oh, I have some provisions with me,” offers Liam. “Just a biscuit and a canteen of water, but it should do for now.”

Killing him outright? _Outright?_ That last word got lodged in his mind the moment it left Liam, and Lucius won’t rest until he gets the clarification he desperately needs. “What d-do you mean, outright?”

Liam shuffles through his belongings as he works his mind, lips taut as he sorts through ways he might be able to express his suspicions without rousing too much distress from his lord’s captive. “More likely, he’ll, er… play with him a little while.”

Roused nonetheless, Lucius sucks in a rattled breath, gripping his chest as he gapes at Liam in terror. “No! He can’t!”

The Sister makes attempts at abating his shock by rubbing his arm, but such a stilted gesture could never chase back horror like this. Liam continues. “I-I can’t excuse his tendencies. Only explain them. His tutor, you see… mistreated him a lot, especially when he discovered his daughter was the subject of romantic pursuit. He wouldn’t permit such a match, not even with someone who had as bright a future as him. His brother had a much better personality. I mean, Sebastian’s the rightful heir to House Khathelet, but in spite of that, he was so vehemently opposed to all that he was. He tried to beat it into him, savagely, mercilessly, inappropriately… and each time, he would emerge more cold and warped than the last time. Eventually, he reached a height of coldness that could match, retaliated, and… crippled him as a result.”

Lucius swallows, finding himself able to fit inside the dark crannies of Sebastian’s past with tragic ease, only up until the wrathful result. He plunges into his fears. “That’s… h-horrid.”

Liam nods gravely. “The cycle turns like a wheel. She spurned him for his transformation, shut him out for inflicting such a condition upon her own flesh and blood, which only twisted him into a more hateful being. He begged for forgiveness and demanded her kindness again, but to no avail. The tutor was finally let go, taking his family with him.”

He may have been speaking, but all Lucius could really hear were words and not meanings. Recognizing this, he opens his mouth as though to speak, but it's as though he finds communication fully inaccessible. Instead, he smells rotting floorboards and feels the roots of his hair splitting.

“It’s shameful.” Liam breathes another sigh through his nose, maintaining an unfocused gaze across the room at the emblem above the mantle. “I feel like… the noble thing… no, the right thing to do is betray my master and find some way to free you,” he whispers on a tremulous stream of air. “But to be truthful, I’m… scared of the repercussions.” He turns back to Lucius, a chill running up his spine as he glimpses the curious shape of his murky terror. “But whenever I see you like this… I’m reminded what kinds of atrocities he’s putting you through and… I can’t stomach it, especially when I’m part of the reason you’re stuck here.” While he puzzles together what he should say next, the shuddering form next to him seizes all the attention in the room. The cleric shrieks like a spider fell into her lap and flies backwards, her entire face blown wide with shock as she clutches the collar of her cloak in a deathgrip. Liam snaps into action. He sees what she sees. “Lucius, are you okay? Lucius!”

The monk holds himself as though trying to resist his uncontrollable shudders, clawing at his sleeves and whining like an injured dog. He begins to rock back and forth, murmuring to himself unintelligibly, breaths quickening into pants until Liam’s hand flies to his shoulder to console him, knock him out of it, or… he’s not sure, but he wants him to stop. All it does is cause him to arch backwards with a feral scream, jerking about senselessly. Liam pulls back in shock and watches with marked horror as the monk whimpers and screams, the whites of his eyes striking. He fights an unseen enemy with convulsions, braces himself, sobs dryly, shakes his head back and forth in repetitive motions. Over and over again, he arches, rocks back and forth, and contorts his face like he’s writhing on hot coals.

“He’s… oh, by the love of St. Elimine, he’s… p-possessed…!”

Liam jolts, tearing himself away on instinct. “Wh-what?”

“I’ve never seen such a thing before!” She herself starts to quake, and then, to cope with the petrifying sights and sounds of Lucius losing himself to demons, she bites her knuckles and treads through the turbulent waters of her mind to reach her next action. “What horror is this? I… I must go get the chaplain at once!” 

Liam opens his mouth, glances back to Lucius, and cancels his protestation. “Okay. I’ll… I’ll stand by, then!”

The panicked woman flees in a flurry of flowing white. Flummoxed, Liam is torn between finding some way to console his unprompted agony and putting even more space between them. He decides upon supervising him at a safe distance, raising his hands indecisively close to his ears. Every moan and every spasm twists the guilt deeper into his chest. More than anything, watching him like this is bloodcurdling, and he doesn’t understand it at all. When the tremors cease, relief washes over him.

“Lucius…?”

“Nn…!” He rides another wave of them with renewed verve, proving to Liam that whatever evil spirit infused with Lucius had not, in fact, left him alone yet. Submitting to his reservations, he backs up toward the door slowly, keeping his wary gaze fixed on him as he decides he might as well just keep watch in case he stirs up outside attention— until someone barrels into him with a shove and knocks him off his feet.

“Lucius!”

It’s an intruder, that’s for sure, because whoever barged in uninvited was not Sebastian, not the chaplain, not any cleric or servant, no— it was a prisoner, and somehow, he’d gotten unchained, which leaves the fate of his lord questionable. The criminal looks like one of the guards, but it’s a rather slapdash attempt because feathers poke out in places, like his butt and arms. He has no time to ponder the absurdity of it before the captive twists around and runs his nabbed axe through the unfortunate retainer. After that, Raven refocuses his wavering vision on the fitful monk he had worked so hard to reach.

It feels as though the temperature around him plunges as he recognizes the situation for what it is, wonders what kind of unsavory situation triggered it, and snaps into action to ensure that Lucius is okay.

The short distance from his position to the bedside stretches out before him, widening like a gulf as he rushes over. He feels so unattainable lately, like trying to grab a fistful of stars out of the night sky, that when finally he has his arms around him to drag him back, it feels unreal, like he’s fallen into a trance or made contact with the divine. Nothing even hurts anymore. He can’t relish the embrace he’s been craving when Lucius flails and jerks so much, squeezing his distressed cries out on wasted breath as he pushes the bed with his feet and writhes like a fish ensnared in an eagle’s talons.

“Lucius, shh, shhhh it’s me,” he murmurs close to his ear. “It’s just me. I’m here; I made it; I’ve got you. I’m gonna get you out of this nightmare.” He slackens momentarily in his hold, head lolling to the side as if to finally sink into the calm of the moment, but the seizure activity starts up all over again, his face squeezed in phantasmal pain as he whimpers like a frightened child and attempts to wrest himself free from his lover.

It doesn’t hurt Raven’s feelings. It doesn't scare him, either, but it does upset him somewhere in his core. His episodes aren’t a strange new occurrence, though they have been rare these days, and not nearly as devastating as this one seems to be. Lucius remains unresponsive, dragged somewhere deep inside of his mind, and while Raven would love nothing more than the power to pull him out of himself, he has learned over the years to accept that the best thing to do is give him a safe place to fight it, watch over him, and wait for it to subside. It’s not exactly the most convenient moment to be having one, though. There are no safe places and they have no time to ride it out. “Sorry, Lucius. It looks like I’m hauling you around like a sack of flour again. Get mad all you want about it later.” He slips his arm beneath the backs of his thighs, the pain from earlier coming back to bite him as he overextends his reach trying to hoist him up. He hisses, then tries again. “This stupid arm...!”

Just when he counts his blessings that Sebastian was auspiciously absent, a familiar voice weasels in behind him, stilted by outrage just barely clamped down upon.

“What is the _meaning_ of this?”

Raven switches priorities, sets Lucius back down, and reaches for the decorative weapon he borrowed from the corridors in his haste. Spears and lances weren’t to his liking, and the guard disappointed. “I was _hoping_ you’d show up. I have an axe to grind with you.”

“How did you…” Shaking out of his bewilderment, Sebastian steels himself for what will undoubtedly be another skirmish. He smirks, confident about engaging in a battle with a weary opponent. "That's not the arm you used to fight me earlier, is it?"

"Shut your ugly mouth!"

They clash. It’s instantly clear how battle wounds, fatigue, and muscle strain encumber the mercenary. With all his killing intent loaded into one fierce swing, he misses, fails to steady himself against the momentum of it, and ends up cleaving a chair in half and knocking the table over in a clamorous cacophony of porcelain and metal. It also causes even more intense pain to shoot through his arms, but he disregards it in his heat and tries to regain the balance he lost, only to topple backwards onto the smashed furniture with Sebastian pouncing on his fallen form with his lance at the ready. The first move he makes is to disarm Raven, which works especially well when his arms aren’t working at their ideal capacity to begin with. Just when Raven tries to reclaim it with his other hand, the lord pins him by the shaft of his weapon, bearing down on his neck, knees crushing his arm sockets. The mercenary struggles beneath him. Sebastian struggles just to hold him down.

“You put up a… good fight for someone… so debilitated as you,” he hisses.

Even if he weren’t gagging, Raven wouldn’t waste his breath on pointless words; his current mentality is strong enough to override the jolt of pain required to reclaim the handle of his axe from the pile of pretty rubble above his head. Panicked, Sebastian forces more weight upon him, tries to strangle him with the brunt of his weapon to diminish whatever remnants of strength his opponent frustratingly still demonstrates.

“I’d kill you… put you out of your misery… I’m really itching to, but… Lucius and I have a pact…” Raven won’t even look at him. He even seems to be dimly focused on the space just behind him. In a way, that ruffles his feathers even more. “For now, I’ll just have to take your lights—“ A crack splits the air at the back of his skull. The tension on Raven’s neck relents. Sebastian collapses, knocked out cold. Freed from the choke, Raven gasps for air.

“Lord Raymond…!”

Raven focuses his wooly gaze on the space he had been fixing it on, the fuzzy image of Lucius falling to his knees, dropping the heal staff he clutches to push the weight of the incapacitated noble off of him. Maybe it’s just because of lightheadedness, but somehow, all of it makes him chuckle weakly, as though there is humor to salvage from this dire situation. Or maybe it truly is hilarious in some respect, Lucius thwacking the asshole who abused him across the skull just as he deserved, with an instrument that’s meant to heal wounds. Or maybe he’s just deliriously happy to see Lucius up and about.

It’s too dark to see them, but the sodden, frantic quiver in Lucius’s throat betrays his verging on tears. “A-Are you okay? Please…” His palm touches his cheek, cold to the touch but bathing the younger man’s heart in warmth. Dry, high-pitched, gasping breaths rise and fall from his lungs as he combats the exhaustion of his episode, of shattering through lost time to find his treasured companion locked in a frightening struggle. It was confusing, shocking, and he sprung into the heat of it to save him. Lucius whimpers, succumbs to his cascading emotions, and presses a firm, desperate kiss to his lips. Raven wishes he weren’t so weak and breathless, or else he would have loved to meet the fervor of that kiss with some vim of his own. It doesn’t make it any less revitalizing. He pulls away, but only just, and brushes his thumb across his skin. “I’m here, Lord Raymond… I'm over my fit, I'll pull through, and-and I’ve got you now… I’m going to take care of you. Just hold on a little longer, okay?” He reaches for the heal staff the Sister left behind in the panic he never got to see. “We can’t stay here.”

Raven snorts, a tiny puff of air leaving his nose. “I was… saying the same thing to you… just a bit ago.”

Lucius breaks into a silly, helpless smile powered by the relief that overwhelms him, laughing as he administers healing magic to his partner for the third time that night. “We’re constantly coming to each other’s rescue. I wonder... which one of us will finally be the hero?”

“You, I hope.” He coughs, relaxing into the soothing magic and the therapeutic presence above him. “I want to… see you use a heal staff like that… more often.”

“Shame on you!” he admonishes, joy saturating his voice. “That’s not what they’re for, and you know it!”

“We just find each other… after all this, and we’re arguing again already…?” Feeling a surge in strength return, Raven lifts his upper body from the underside of the collapsed table, forcing Lucius to back up and sit atop his lap. He scoops him up in his arms and indulges in the hug he wanted to give him when the monk was gripped by his fit, fully aware that Sebastian wasn’t dead yet but putting his bloodlust on hold to fulfill another intense need first. He keeps his eyes locked on the unconscious form beside them, growing increasingly distracted, thinking more about hoisting that axe than his lover’s pleasant form. Then, Lucius sighs softly, and his distractions pull back toward him. His mind jitters between love and hate like this until a stampede of footsteps trespasses into his awareness. He pushes Lucius off himself and draws his focus to the door, Lucius cutting out his healing session to do the same.

It’s as though the whole castle has been summoned to Sebastian’s quarters. Gasps fill the room as they behold everything laid to waste, from furniture to bodies. The marquess’s wife shrieks when she takes notice to her own son on the ground; the clergy ready their tomes and staves; the marquess unsheathes his sword.

“Just… what breed of madness has taken storm in here?!” he demands to know.

“Wait!” Lucius cries, thrusting his hand up as though to halt his approach. “I can explain! Y-Your son yet lives, your excellence… He is momentarily stunned as a… as a m-measure of self-defense…” He holds up the staff as though to indicate.

Marquess Khathelet stops. He analyzes the wake of the scene before him a second time, eyeing Sebastian with scrutiny, and then treating Raven to the same when he opens his big, dumb mouth.

“He won’t be alive for much longer.” He reaches for his axe, to which Lucius yelps and tugs on that arm to stop him from indulging in any violent, vengeful whims. The other occupants of the room are all agog at the threat. The marquess raises his sword and stares daggers at the intruder.

“You’re not a guard of my castle, and you won’t be taking the life of any son of mine if I can help it. Who are you, and what is your business here at this hour?”

“The name’s Raven. I’m nothing but a mercenary. Your idiot son decided to abduct my partner, hold him here against his will, and use me as blackmail to get him to cooperate.”

“Lord Raymond…!” pleads Lucius, wishing he would at least have some decorum about the situation, but even more that he pay more heed to his position that he’s currently jeopardizing. He would prefer not to reunite with Raven after a painstaking ordeal only to have him swiftly taken away from him all over again by someone else in power.

The marquess straightens, squinting at him. “Raymond?”

“…That’s not my name.” He averts eye contact. “Not anymore. I discarded it long ago after a tragedy severed me from my old life.”

“Take off that helmet at once.”

Raven cooperates, removing the piece of armor from his skull and revealing his mussed-up head of dark red hair. The marquess examines him, coming even closer, his wife creeping up behind him to do the same. At this point, the clergy files in, some addressing Liam’s fallen form, others more focused on seeing to Sebastian. Those thronging the chaplain try to conceal the stares they keep stealing for Lucius, the healer who was in charge of his care whispering and trying not to get caught glancing his way.

“It’s been a long time, but… you’re the son of the late Marquess Cornwell, are you not?”

“Yes.”

“…Word was exchanged some time ago regarding the resurrection of House Cornwell. Marquess Ostia wanted to see to it that your position be restored, but you didn’t take it?”

“I have my reasons.” His gaze shifts over to the concussed lord getting flipped over beside him. His teeth clench over his next words. It's so hard not to punch him. “Just like I have my reasons for paying your son back for the things he did to Lucius and me.”

Another lordling, more youthful in appearance than Sebastian but with a more mature bearing, pushes himself into better view. “That good-for-nothing scoundrel. I knew he was up to something. I told Lord Father of my suspicions, and after the all the fuss up here with the priests and the smashing furniture, we couldn’t exactly hold it off any longer.”

“On principle, as a father, I cannot allow you to sow the seeds of vengeance with my son’s life. I will, however, hear of his treachery and decide the proper course of action for his impertinence...”

“L-Lord… Father…”

Hearing Sebastian’s voice sends both mercenaries’ hackles up. He also begs the attention of everyone, having stirred from his cataleptic state. There’s addled fear embedded in his tone, even being half-conscious as he is.

“Yes,” the marquess continues. “We have much to discuss.” He turns back to Raven and Lucius. “And I shall hear of your situation as well.”

“From _them_?” shrieks Sebastian, jabbing a finger at them. “They’re a couple of ragtag commoners— _mercenaries_! What value are their words over _mine_?”

“Your words rarely have any value,” cuts in his brother. Sebastian seethes, and is about to run his mouth before his dad interrupts him.

“Given the circumstances, I think I have a right to adhere value to someone’s words as I see fit. Young Raymond… or should I say Raven? Please come with me.”

He rises, feeling a surge of victory, but not quite scratching the itch that would be relieved if he could just slice Sebastian in two. Lucius stands with him, prepared to follow and eager to resolve the conflict with a marquess who showed signs of receptive diplomacy. He’s not sure he could handle being told to stay back at a time when standing at Raven’s side is as crucial to him as breathing, but he doubts he would be so quick to dismiss his side of the story as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me @ 1 chapters: YEAH, I got this outline all figured out; I'm gonna practice my planning skills and unpack this in 5 easy chapters!
> 
> Me @ 3 chapters: ...Okay, I think this might actually take 7 chapters. Hopefully no one notices me tweak the count.
> 
> Me @ 6 or so chapters: HAHAHAHA, what a fool I was! 9 chapters!
> 
> Me now: THROWS ALL MY PAPERS INTO THE SKY; I DON'T EVEN KNOW ANYMORE FUCK IT


	9. No Place Like

They tell him just about everything.

Raven elucidates Marquess Khathelet on Sebastian’s covert mercenary business, and about how he began to treat Lucius with inordinate interest. He complains of how he set up some sort of scheme to get Lucius into the castle, to which Lucius clarifies that he must have set some child on the streets up to trick him into thinking he was helping his injured friend, only to bring him close to the castle, knock him unconscious, and pretend it was a coincidence. 

Raven confirms that yes, he met this child later, who was upset that Sebastian never paid him as promised, and so spilled the beans about how Lucius disappeared that night. 

Lucius tells him in a hushed, careful tone how Sebastian coerced him to remain as part of House Khathelet, lashed out when he couldn’t have his way, and kept him there in spite of his protests. 

It was then Raven’s turn to explain how he tried to find some way inside. Flummoxed, he chanced upon the Super Troupers, rescued them from a bandit problem, and in exchange, they snuck him in disguised him as a performer, but was stopped by Sebastian and locked away. Raven puts gratuitous emphasis on how fighting in a stupid bird costume with an ineffective weapon really held him back. 

Lucius decides then to take the story away from Raven and finish with how he woke to find Raven and Sebastian in the throes of a violent struggle, but his voice wanes and his confidence shutters when he touches upon the blackout that his spiritual illness had caused him. Raven snatches the storytelling baton back by summarizing that he managed to bust out, find Lucius, and was attacked by Sebastian; then, Lucius stopped him by knocking him out with the heal staff. That was the end of their account, and the marquess listens with vexed consideration and a judicial mind to all of it.

“That troublesome wretch.” Irritation knits his brow. He crosses his arms and his chair protests as he sits back. If his weathered face were a mountainside, his frown would be a landslide in slow-motion as he weighs his next words for the pair of mercenaries kneeling before him. “He’s an ugly stain upon House Khathelet, and you just witnessed him soil my carpet. One would think after reaching his age he would shed his teenage indiscretions and start thinking more seriously about his future. It is as though my firstborn and second child were swapped, and now I’m stuck with the perpetual juvenile as a legitimate heir.”

“With all due respect,” says Raven after the necessary pause, “I know of a way to solve your problem. Would you feel better if you hired me to do it?”

Lucius just about twists his head off his neck with how he maneuvers it to gawk incredulously at Raven. Oh, he wants to chew him out, even elbow him if it would make him stop doling out audacious remarks, but he maintains his fraying composure while they have an audience with the marquess, hoping himself threadbare that Raven would push his stubborn mind down a different path. Thankfully, the marquess raises a dry chuckle to that, remaining in good humor despite the thinly veiled threat to his son’s life, and shakes his head.

“Like I said, he is my flesh and blood. I’m not about to hire a sellsword to exterminate him, no matter how much easier it would make my life. That’s not how you solve every interpersonal problem, especially with family.”

Raven’s displeasure surmounts, but he would look that way regardless. Lucius can tell, though. It’s smoldering in his stare. “If this is the way he treats someone like Lucius, I can’t imagine him ruling a whole march of people with any more regard for their well-being.”

The marquess squeezes his eyes shut in painful resignation. “You speak so truly. His younger brother would make a much finer leader. Stellan’s a straight arrow, that one. Always diligent, reliable, even a sharp advisor… He never throws tantrums or fools around. No matter how much I discipline Sebastian, he never shapes up. ”

“He kidnapped my partner and tried to deceive him,” adds Raven, bitterness coating his tone. “An Eliminian monk, no less. Look at him.” He spreads his arms out in gesture as though to frame Lucius’s heavenly features. Even when affected by his recent stressors, his beauty survives unearthly, and the soft light dispersed by patches of firelight helps conceal his battered sickliness and flatters his Etrurian blondness. “He’s very easy on the eyes. I bet you thought him a woman at first, didn’t you?”

Unable to deny this claim, Marquess Khathelet nods along. “No offense, good Lucius.” The monk lifts him a smile of reassurance.

“Lords have slipped him love poems before,” continues Raven. “And your son was so smitten with him he gave him an expensive present when we reconvened. He was trying to court him, both before and after he learned he was not a Sister. But that didn’t stop him. In the heat of our battle, your son even boasted of committing sordid acts upon him.”

Both Lucius and the marquess blanch at his accusation, also synchronized in their outcries of “No!”

Raven pivots on his knees to Lucius, grabbing his arm and boring his hard eyes into his stricken ones. “He did, didn’t he? Violate you?”

Mortified, Lucius works his mouth with nothing produced, his mind jammed between the cogs. He’s not ready to drag the truth out into the light. Color seeps back into his face as he feels and feels strongly, his shameful victimhood left to air out in front of a distinguished stranger and an intimate partner he couldn’t even work up the courage to couple with the way he had been made to do with others. He begs himself not to lie, but his words conspire against his good intentions when he stammers, “N-No…”

The idea that he’s privy to his sexual abuse makes him feel naked somehow, soiled and unclean, a target of imminent ridicule. He worries that they think of him in a different light now. Lucius can no longer maintain any form of eye contact as his sights sink to Raven’s dark, torn blood-caked legs, trying to shut everything out to protect his frazzled mind. Raven lets go of his arm and regards his companion for an extra moment, stumbling into the error he made. Lucius, flustered and avoidant, had been impacted severely by his implication, and suddenly, Raven discovers sympathy, and then some guilt for his rashness.

Moreover, was he wrong about that? Hope streaks through him that Sebastian had been embellishing to slip under his skin, and never Lucius’s. When Lucius pushes pale yellow strands behind his ears to smooth his nerves, however, the candlelight falls upon a dark spot like a bruise, previously obscured by the privacy of his long hair. Raven’s eyebrows fall.

Marquess Khathelet scrutinizes the air between the two with his chin propped on his fist. He accounts for Lucius’s eye-skirting and the fists clenched against his robes, and Raven’s sudden disconcertment. A troubled look crosses his face. Then, it breaks out in red. Deciding for himself, he clears his throat.

“If all that you say is true, then I believe the weight of his transgressions requires more severe disciplinary measures.” 

“I’m glad you see my point of view,” Raven says with a respectful nod. “…Your excellence.”

Another gravid pause of unvoiced thoughts churns between everyone, all drifting down separate currents. The marquess becomes first to reveal where his led him. “You’re a curious fellow, aren’t you? Rumor has it that House Cornwell had the chance to revive. That you, Raymond, had survived, and that the new Marquess Ostia had offered to help you restore it. Why, given an opportunity like that, did you choose to decline?”

Raven averts eye contact in favor of Lucius. Then, out of suspicion he might betray some of his true feelings, he forsakes him for the exotic rug at the center of the room, eyes tracing the zigzagging Sacaen geometry at its borders.

“…Hector— Marquess Ostia— has his hands full enough as it is.”

“What if you had the help of two Lycian territories? Would you reconsider it then?”

Raven ponders for only a second. “Unlikely. I’ve already made my choice. I don’t think this sort of lifestyle really suits me, anyway.”

“You seem honest. I can envision you redeeming its sullied name.”

“House Cornwell… made its mistakes, and met a fair end for it.” His tone sinks low and careful, as though addressing a funeral. “I was just a stupid kid left in the dark. It’s over, now. I’ve moved forward. I don’t need to go back.”

“So be it. If you ever reconsider, however… my doors will open for your name.”

“I haven’t changed my mind, but your offer is appreciated.”

Whether his doors will budge for Raven or Raymond, he cannot determine. Anyone who calls him by his dead name is calling for someone he buried in the rubble of Cornwell’s remains. No matter how much he tries to leave it behind, it always follows him. He spares another glance for Lucius, whose head tilts down, gaze trained far away from anywhere he can see.

The only reparation that could possibly satisfy Raven is his son’s head, not to resurrect a past that can no longer exist for him. Only two pieces of his past he cares to concern himself with are what’s left of his family: one far away in Caerleon, the other close by his side. And he could have lost one of them to a life of misery and captivity. Raymond is at peace now, but it’s the vicious stuff Raven was borne of that fumes and simmers anew.

What interest would he have in helping him, anyway? There must be some kind of catch, the sort Hector would never scheme up. Questions like this keep Raven out of tangled politics and on the straightforward path of a traveling mercenary.

“If that is all, then… I grant you pardon for your trespass on the grounds that you were unduly wronged by a member of my household. I sympathize with your plight. I will deal with my son shortly.” 

Afterwards, they’re provided quarters for the night. They were also compensated for their troubles with new weapons and supplies, and Raven has his grievous wounds tended to. As much as they want to depart promptly for the road, fatigue grips them, and because Lucius exacerbated the injury he arrived with, his limp only grew more pronounced, so it would be asinine to leave so soon. The fear that Sebastian might come back hovers between them, but with the backing of the marquess, he’s significantly less of a threat. 

Raven and Lucius wage unseen wars against their feelings beneath the surface: Lucius with his newfound vexations, Raven with enduring hatred. Any grudge he could have borne for House Khathelet was all shrugged off onto just one member of it: the blackheart next in line to become ruler of it. That vile piece of work had been whisked away to be dealt with, leaving Raven unable to quell the urge in his arms to swing with all the restored vitality that courses through his muscles like a bad itch.

“Lord Raven…” A soft hand perches on his shoulder. He snaps from the sleep-deprived sway of his thoughts to meet Lucius, whose face creases in entreating concern. Some of the tension fades from Raven, but not all.

“What is it, Lucius? Shouldn’t you be resting that foot of yours?”

Despite his rankled urges, his voice tempers to a hushed calm just for Lucius. Those prior thoughts begin to cool when he rests his sights on his beloved companion, the one he successfully reclaimed. He lowers the silver axe he had been inspecting against the wall of the guest room that had been prepared for them, careful to ensure it wouldn’t topple over.

 _I only walked a few steps_ gets shafted for his dominant preoccupation: “You’re thinking… brutal thoughts, aren’t you?”

Raven’s frown deepens. To avert his gaze from Lucius, he trains it on the pool of lent red fabric on the floor shed from his body, something he must have been eager to rid himself of. Now he stands in the thin white tunic worn beneath, ready as his confidant, same as ever. The vengeful mercenary crosses his arms and huffs through his nose.

“It’s only natural, isn’t it?”

It’s not the grand score he ached to settle with Ostia over a year ago, but his thoughts boil in a one-man bloodbath. Since the war ended, his inclinations had been doused by a clearer mind and dulcified by the likes of Lucius and Priscilla, but another more personal assault against someone he holds as close as family stokes a blistering feeling similar to that one. This time, there’s no doubt in his mind who wronged him or how it transpired, and the revenge he never got to satisfy with the destruction of Cornwell rears up untamed with a new form. With his response, Lucius almost seems to shrink, but the intrepid, anguished flicker dancing in his eyes intensifies as he rests his hands together in plea.

“I know… I know your feelings, my lord, but please listen to me. Please…”

Raven fights the desire to contest his lover’s words with all the hateful fire that laps at his heart for Sebastian. When he sees his careworn face peppered with bruises— subtle next to one cheek and violet closer to his neck— his anger flares, harder to tame. Lucius must have seen this change, because his eyes gloss with an even more intense sheen, his hands folding in a tight ball to his chest, and his silent, earnest beseeching directs Raven’s anger toward pity. He’d pushed the monk’s pleas to quell his vengeful heart away before, but in the end, listening to his counsel had guided him in the right direction. Most of all, and especially in light of how much Lucius had just suffered, he works even harder to clamp down on all the violent passion that threatens his reason. Why should he have to be the victim of his rage when he doesn’t deserve to be a victim of anything? The monk’s sensitive condition will doubtlessly be aggravated by the slightest emotional provocations. He sighs, venting yet another harsh stream of air through his nose as he tries to control himself.

“Fine. Spit it out.”

“If you cut him down, it will only be your ruin,” Lucius reminds him. “You may have the revenge you sought, but at the cost of your life… Y-You don’t know how the marquess might react...”

Raven begins to lose his struggle to hatred. “I don’t care what the risks are, so long as he gets served whatever misery he dished out to you.”

This was the wrong thing to say. Lucius covers his face with both hands as though nursing the agony that courses through him, shrinking ever so slightly away from the other man. “…And at the price of my happiness! Raven!” He pulls out of his retreat to grab at Raven’s folded arms, seeking his eyes once again in bold desperation. “I forbid you from tormenting me any further! I have had enough heartache in my life! If you end up killing yourself for the sake of something as senseless as this revenge, I will never be able to forgive you!”

The tears seeping from his tired eyes spellbind Raven, his fraught expression adding a fine edge to his potent words. They douse the flames of his resolve that had been growing as he steamed quietly to himself. Lucius continues his tirade.

“I should like to have my own revenge on you for devastating me like that, if you ever, _ever_ think—“

The bigger mercenary’s arms encase Lucius tightly against him, interrupting his rant and the thoughts that accompany it. He squeezes him close, burying his face into his hair. Lucius’s tongue goes slack as he’s pacified by the abrupt show of affection, and succumbs to the strength of his arms and the heartbeat he loves, the scent he knows. He’s all he wants to think or feel after worrying he might never get another chance.

“You can shut up now, Lucius.” There are no barbs in his tone, only a steady, muted gentleness. “I get it. I’m being selfish again, aren’t I? Thinking only about how to ease my rancor…” He moves his arm off his other to cover more of Lucius. “But what he did to you makes me mad out of my wits. I don’t… know what to do with my feelings right now.”

Lucius closes his eyes, smiles softly, and rubs his back in serene sweeps, hoping to service him in calming his inner tempest. “You were like this before, when the grief of losing House Cornwell turned to rage. However, there is nothing to grieve here.” He tips his head up, lips brushing against the underside of his jaw, lowering his voice to a husky, delicate intimacy. “I’m with you now. By your side, and not his.” He aims a kiss at his neck. “He wronged us in taking me, and you wronged him back by returning me to where I belong, and humiliating him before his family. There is no need for death here.”

Simply listening to the sweet stream of his voice, the puffs of breath tickling his skin, disarms him. That alone might settle his heart into acquiescing to Lucius’s will. His presence is like a lullaby for his soul, and god, is he tired. It shows in his slackened posture, how he leans dangerously into Lucius like an uprooted tree. The substance of Lucius’s words ultimately placates his reason. “Let’s go to bed,” he murmurs, kissing his head, repulsed by the image of Sebastian doing the same thing not too long ago, and, incensed by this, applies another, firmer kiss as though to further assert to himself that it’s not his head to kiss. Lucius giggles, oblivious to his ruffled feathers, and pulls away to finish getting ready for bed. Raven helps him where it’s hard, and Lucius chooses not to protest his assistance.

When they’re under the sheets, they lock so tightly together they might just fuse if they’re not careful. The reunited couple shares in languid, impassioned kisses while hands seek bodies, thankful to feel this proximity again, relishing the familiarity of the form tucked against the other. One of them indulges in this reverie more heavily, euphoric that the man he shared more than ten years with encroaches his boundaries, not a creepy interloper, and on his terms. In the back of his mind, defying his previous sexual inhibitions, he yearns for him to break his boundaries even more, override all the times he pleaded no and had his self-respect denied. Raven works his fizzling anger into a softer passion, fixated on the idea that he holds Lucius in his proper place, being loved by the right person, and doubtlessly better than a selfish letch could ever offer him. If he weren’t so run down, he would fear going overboard and drowning his lover in too much again.

They don’t last very long, because exhaustion tranquilizes them into a deep, peaceful slumber. One exchange manages to slip between them.

"I'm glad you've come home," whispers Raven.

"Thank you for bringing me back..."


	10. Daybreaks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I come bearing warnings for the following chapter:
> 
> -dreams involving implications of childhood sexual abuse  
> -descriptions of child abuse, bullying, and sexual abuse, both of minors and adults  
> -GRATUITOUS FLUFF um, oops!
> 
> I think that's it? Really heavy on the comfort fraction of the h/c genre in this chapter, so if that's what you came for, this is like... the motherload. I hope it pleases someone! Thank you all again for being my audience. It means a lot that you're so willing to read this sprawling, self-indulgent saga and all its imperfections.

A scrawny body is no easier to carry on fleeing feet when it has not been fed, no matter how lightweight it is.

“You’re mine now,” and hands snatch him, lift him from the cold, splintered timber. Breadcrumbs tumble. His back thumps the wall. The leer of a monster scrutinizes him, angry at his transgression, but pleased all the same.

“Empty inside, are we?”

He tries with one eye to peer into the monster’s cowl, but the darkness engulfs him, and he’s surrounded, no, suffocated, pushed, prodded, and punished for sin with another brand. A big hand slaps over his mouth. Laughter hangs in the air like a chorus of irreverent angels. He’s full now, full in all the wrong places, but it’s a queasy fullness and he’s going to be sick. The monster devours just enough of him to keep his tiny heart throbbing. There’s no love in this, only fascinated disgust and carnal gluttony. He begins to cry.

“I’ll never do it again… so please, never do it again…”

Lodged in some distorted hallucination grounded in the past, Raven doesn’t belong, couldn’t belong, but he hears him call to him. He sounds like he does these days. Then, he sees his shadow stretch across the wall, a full-fledged, anachronistic adult, shoving his monster aside mid-coitus and gawking at him with alarm, then— and his heart falters— repugnance. Lucius thrusts his arms out to him, no longer approximately three feet tall, and tries to keep him from leaving.

“No, don’t!”

He shakes his head in slow sweeps, backing away, auburn eyes fixed on him and flashing in horror. “Lucius, what’s the matter with you?”

Lucius is stricken with a harrowing self-awareness, and when he looks down, he can’t find himself anymore. His shape morphs grotesquely, he reeks of his monster’s touch, and he understands immediately why Raven should be perturbed by something like him. He covers his face and sobs, scathed by the worst rejection, praying to be whisked away by the mercy of death into the gentle promise of an afterlife.

One of his wrists is apprehended. His eyes flutter open. Blackness fills his vision, and he’s delivered. But his hearts still hammers. He tries to pull away, and the hand lets him do it.

“Mmm?” He finds his lips so dry they crack apart. Raven’s voice carries his name again, tender and apprehensive. He’s somewhere soft, somewhere

“Lucius…”

Somewhere safe. Then, it dawns on him, and relief washes over like the sun of a new day. “I… Oh…” He swallows, licking his lips. “I was having a nightmare…”

“Yeah, I’ll say. You’re clammy. Hey.” He slides an arm over his shoulder, patting him with the hand that belongs to it. “Come here.”

How can he resist his invitation in light of the fresh exit wounds his dream carved into him? Swirling like heavy delirium, the scenes still threaten him, and he shifts into Raven’s waiting embrace, trying to ground himself against the electricity stirring in his nerves. Everything surrounding him registers as Raven, solid Raven, and at last, a precious sense of security slips in. His feelings had been roiled, and he’s grateful to be rescued from the storm of it, but this whiplash renders him unable to stop weeping.

“You’ve been through a lot, haven’t you?” Raven tries, pushing his hair out of his face for him. He rocks gently, desperate to console him but uneasy about his ability. “I want you to stop crying because I hate it when you do that, but that’s…” He stops to take a more tactful stab at communicating his feelings. “No, what I mean is… It’s fine to cry. Reasonable, even. I only hate it because… I hate the pain that makes you do it. I don’t know how to make it stop.”

Lucius nods, choked of words. He releases another shuddering breath as he makes a conscious effort to pacify himself. As ineloquent as Raven is, he helps. He can see right through his indelicate phrasing and find the man who has never stopped caring, not since he was a boy. This is so much better than the Raven in his dreams. He continues to stroke his hair, loosely disentangling strands from one another.

“Would it help if you told me about it?”

Lucius considers. Then, that queasy feeling returns, and he nets tears in his eyelashes when he squeezes his eyes shut. The thought that Raven could ever regard him the way his figment did just moments ago spirals him down treacherous hypotheticals. Bringing his terrors to life by breathing voice unto them seems impossible, a taboo stamped over him that has long since prevented him from forming his lips to their contours, and the irrational side of him warns that releasing them into the night will make them more real than ever before, real enough to hurt him again. Would Raven be able to comprehend the sense of powerlessness and exploitation that nightmare revisited upon him? Raven learned of it recently, but his grasp only scratches the surface, and he still has no idea why he spurns him in the bedroom. He probably thinks Sebastian was his first. He swallows the lump back and tries not to leave his partner hanging.

“It’s… difficult for me to explain.”

Raven begrudgingly accepts that answer, though it doesn’t keep his curiosity at bay. How can he begin to help him when he can’t distinguish the shapes of his terrors? It’s like being caught in the middle of a fray without a usable weapon. At least he knows one thing.

“Well. Whatever was scaring you so much was just a dream. It’s not real.” He squeezes him, visiting upon his forehead a kiss. “But this? This is.”

He smiles, utterly helpless against his unexpected, artless charm. A pleased, breathy note vacates his throat as he sidles closer, as though to a fire on a cold night.

“Yes… It was slightly nonsensical, anyway.” He sniffs, wiping at the vestiges of his tears with his long sleeve. With gentle but effective force he pushes them both down against the mattress, readjusting himself in Raven’s hold, content with how snugly his torso fits in his arms. “I will try to go back to sleep. We should get as much as possible, so we may leave this place sooner. Sorry for waking you.”

“It’s no big deal. Sweet dreams this time, you hear?”

“Oh, I hope. May your dreams be even sweeter.”

With nothing left to say, they lie in wait of sleep, listening passively to the silky whisper of Lucius’s hair between Raven’s fingers; the hushed crescendo of rain drumming; the rise and fall of breathing; steady heartbeats: soft sounds of life, of togetherness. Like this, it would be easy to drift back into slumber before morning light evaporated the night, but private thoughts storm beneath the surface of their tranquility.

After a few minutes, Raven interrupts it. “…Lucius?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry. For failing to get to you fast enough.” His hand rests upon the center of his shoulder blades, thumb moving like a pendulum in place. “I didn’t want things to come to what they did. I should have known he’d be after you again. I could have…”

“What could you have done?” Lucius strokes his cheek, wishing to wipe the discontentment he can envision off his face. “It’s not your fault.”

“I can’t really get behind that… I messed up in other ways, too, and you know it.”

“But I’m impressed by your valiant effort.” Laughter tinsels his voice. “And I never thought I would see your dramatic side- oh, hey!”

Raven bonked him on the head, but only with enough force to crack a paper-thin sheet of ice. He fails to realize he’s grinning in spite of himself.

“I knew you’d laugh it up later. Thanks. That was probably the hardest part of the whole scheme, so at least someone appreciates my abysmal talent.”

He clings harder to him, laughing as he exaggerates a damsel’s role for theatrical effect. “It saved my life! Raven, the dashing Raven. I’m swooning.” 

“As you should be.” He grabs onto his cheek and squeezes it like dough, but Lucius swats him away, batting at his hand even as it released him.

“I’ll have you know when I heard your voice up there, it made my night.” He settles down. “I’m glad you landed such a suitable role!”

“Well, I’m not.” He almost makes a remark about how much fun Sebastian was having with his new bird, but quickly thinks better and closes the door on that one. Lucius wouldn’t find any amusement in it, only horror. “It didn’t come with much armor, and that turned out to be a problem.”

“Oh, Raven…” Nonetheless, the mere idea of his companion unprotected in enemy territory sends Lucius back into the fret zone. “Do you know how much I worried for you? I feared you would die… I genuinely thought it might happen, and I was ready to… to... …I’m so glad my prayers were answered.”

“Give yourself some credit. If I didn’t have you come to my rescue, I would have been a goner. He just about skewered me dead until you showed up with that staff.”

“I think this is an appropriate time to say… I told you so!” He lifts himself up higher by Raven’s shoulders, moving atop him, wanting their faces to be closer. His hair spills onto Raven’s cheek. “It came in handy, all right. It saved your life! Lord Sebastian was kind enough to supply me with the tools I needed to undo him.”

“Lucius.” Raven chuckles, squeezing him tight with one arm. With his other, he brings Lucius’s head in to close the short distance hanging between their lips. “Listen to you talk that way. I guess the mercenary life suits you, after all.”

“If it means I get to travel with you, then so be it.” He takes his face in his hands and fulfills another pending kiss, lingering on the warm tingle for a few seconds longer than he imagined doing. Its impact outdoes him, and he breaks with a gasping moan. His voice floats mellow and intimate thereafter. “I know a mercenary more upstanding than some aristocrats, and I would gladly follow him.”

“Well… I’m not as upstanding as you say I am,” he argues despite Lucius’s invigorating sweetness. “I can’t forget how I lashed out at you inappropriately, twisted by my grudges… If there’s anything I should apologize for, I think it’s that. If I hadn’t gotten so mad and stormed off, none of this would have ever happened…”

Lucius’s touch migrates from the sides of his head to the back of it, and he presses their foreheads together with everlasting affection gushing from his soul. “You’re so upstanding that you recognize where you erred and apologize for it. You know I forgive you…” He steals yet another quick kiss sparked from the heart. “Even if we were parted until the end of time, I would. And… I have my share of apologies to give you, as well.”

“I don’t want to hear them.” Raven kisses him back, addiction buzzing in his blood. “You did nothing wrong.”

“But…”

Raven keeps at him, kissing him over and over again, and every time he opens his mouth to speak, he makes a point to hush him with his lips. He could have lost him, he keeps remembering. He came so close to it, and yet he’s here in his arms kissing him senseless. Lucius should be a little frustrated at being prevented from spilling his heartfelt apologies to him, but he can’t find it in him. Instead, he giggles and forgets, subdued by the affection weaponized against him. Soon, Raven finds himself rolling on top, losing himself to the perfect conduit for his impassioned reconciliation with Lucius. He can communicate how much he wants him near when his hands lock with his, how precious he is when their chests align, how much he wants to sink into his enticing warmth as much as physically possible when his kisses deepen. It’s a dangerous gamble, so exhilarating, so easy to forget how effortlessly Lucius fractures under intense intimacy even when his intentions stem from love, not greedy, selfish lust. 

It’s hard not to be encouraged by reciprocation, though. Lucius accepts him, parts his lips for him, squeezes his hands and traces his arms. Something else ignites, and his hand wanders, too. It journeys down the slope of his waist, slides a little too close to his hip and

Lucius falls away from him then. With a nervous yelp, he clutches onto his shoulder blades and curls against him like retreating against him will save him. Raven’s hand soars to a higher place on his chest as he adjusts to Lucius’s change in mood.

“What?” he asks breathlessly as he gets off him.

Lucius gropes for the ledge out of the dark fissure his thoughts slip through in silence. His partner rustles him gently, unresponsiveness jabbing at his nerves. Worst-case scenario, he might fall victim to another one of his attacks. If he can stir him out of it before it gets bad, that’s his best hope.

“Speak to me. Did I do something wrong?”

Raven’s voice is something to grab onto, a hand extended to yank him out of abstract nightfall. He swallows down his speechlessness and wants only for him to go on, not to steal a peek at the blemishes on his soul, a foolish wish in the face of the inevitable. He had sworn he could explain himself, hadn’t he?

Instead, he finds himself choking out, “Please keep… Just keep talking to me,” to cover up for having to confess why the way he glides amorously close to his loins drags a cold blade down his spine. Raven’s brow knits as he tries to unravel Lucius’s hidden fears.

“You want me to keep talking, eh? Well, that’s fine by me, but I want you to do some talking, too. Sound fair?”

The room is dark enough that only sketchy outlines show, but it feels as though Raven is shining a ray of harsh light upon him. Oh, he wants to talk, reveal the burdens that prevent him from expressing love through his body, but if Raven judges him as strictly as he judges himself, a glacial, lonesome feeling threatens to seize him. Retracing those dismal passageways he has never uttered a word of to anyone renders him dumb and dreadful. Even sparing just one thought to a hand lifting up the hem of his orphan’s rags stirs him to the verge of hysterics; he’s afraid of those memories consuming him like they did in his dreams and he shakes his head, turning to burrow into Raven’s chest.

“I… want to lay everything down bare before you, but… the fragility of my heart won’t allow me to tread anywhere near my demons…”

Raven rolls to his side, accepts him into his embrace, and goes quiet for a spell. Someone as ordinarily brusque as him has to be extra careful when Lucius is reduced to his most vulnerable, he recognizes. After what he’s been through— and he’s decides to focus solely on Lucius’s feelings, not his own spitting vitriol— he really ought to put forth the effort to be supportive if he wants to get anywhere near solving his problems. Curiosity grows at the corners of his mind, back again and hungry for understanding. He’s acquainted with some of his demons. He fought a few of them with Lucius when they were younger, when Lucius only just discovered what it meant to have someone to fight them with. These ones must be a different breed frothing from the same pit.

“Take your time.” He may be a bit rough around the edges, but the soft parts of him reach out in sympathy for his old friend. He bows his head to meet Lucius’s, speaking softly against his crown. “You know I’ll wait. I…” He swallows thickly, pushing past some irritating sheepishness. “I love you. I want to know what’s been hurting you this whole time. If you can tell anyone, please… let it be me.”

Lucius releases a tremulous, grateful sigh to purge some of his creeping anxieties, and permits himself to lean into Raven’s warm, comforting support. “Thank you… Your words bring me some strength. I have you, and that’s… the greatest treasure in the world.”

He’s putting Raven’s heart into overdrive. “Oh, cut it out.” He kisses the top of his head and holds him closer by the waist. “You’re such a sap.”

This induces a light gale of laughter from Lucius, sweet and defensive. “And so what if I am? Don’t say that while I’m being my most sincere!”

Raven smiles. “When are you ever _not_ sincere?”

“M-m-mm,” replies Lucius in the muffled cadence of, ‘I don’t know’. He takes deep, conciliatory breaths full of Raven’s emboldening scent to stabilize his rocky mood from teetering over the edge.

As much as Raven enjoys their newfound levity, he itches to discover more about Lucius’s turmoil. Pressing and squeezing him for an answer won’t do, but… “Well… Just know this: I’m not going anywhere. You’re safe here. Even here, in this godforsaken castle, you’re safe as long as I’m with you. Sir Ass-stain won’t lay so much as a pinky on you for as long as you live; I’ll cut it off before he does. And whatever is troubling you, well… Don’t be scared. The past is done for. It can’t happen again.”

“That’s just the thing… It has.”

Raven’s mind halts. He jumpstarts it again, runs it over what Lucius said. The meaning is obscured, but the way he interprets it chills his bones and twists his guts.

“What do you mean by that?”

It already took so much mental strength just to compact the excruciating years into one incident. To take it apart, to address the details bit by bit, is quite another undertaking. He commands himself to remain steadfast and takes it a step further. “…Let me just say… I’ve had worse done upon me than Lord Sebastian.”

A squirming sensation emerges in Raven’s heart as his imagination takes root. “…Who? When? Where can I find them?” he murmurs with dangerous intent lurking in his growl.

“Would it matter? The past is finished, is it not? It’s done hurting me.”

“As if!” Raven’s palm scales Lucius’s back, stops just behind his heart, and presses firmly. “The past has hurt you for years! You expect me to ignore the scars on your heart?”

“But you can’t-“

“Yes, I can!” The pain constricts his throat. “I see them when I look into your eyes. Not when you’re happy, but when you’re troubled by something you remember. I know of what caused them, too.” He slips a leg beneath one of Lucius’s, knotting them even closer together. “But apparently, you haven’t shared them all with me. You’re still guarding some secrets. …Why?”

“I’m sorry,” mutters Lucius, sadness drenching his apology.

“No, no, don’t do that,” urges Raven, tilting his chin up to keep him from withdrawing. “You have absolutely nothing to be sorry for.”

“I… All along, I should have trusted you… But my heart was so weak that I couldn’t even bear to… let you in. Even you.” He gulps back a fresh torrent of tears, willing them to abate. “But that’s changed. You know where this is heading; I’m sure you do. And now that you know what shade this dark secret is… you’re still not disturbed by me?”

“No,” asserts Raven on a slightly bewildered note. “What makes you suppose I’d think any less of you?”

His response forces Lucius to think about his own preconceptions. “You’re right… I should never have thought so little of you. Oh… What was I afraid of? Perhaps… I was just so fearful that, upon knowing how defiled I am, it would disgust you, and you would find me too revolting to love…”

“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s the thought that anyone would do that to you I find revolting.” He keeps his hand drifting in repetitive courses over his back to help coerce him from the bad spaces his mind wanders and keep him here with him. “Not you. Never you, Lucius.”

Hearing him affirm that unchains his heart into welcome buoyancy. And now that it’s been freed, his fears of rejection look silly and far beneath him. His assessment of Raven’s character had not been reached via any sense or acute judgment, but with a blindness wreaked by old shadows leering at him, undermining his subconscious. He finds he doesn’t even mind Raven sharpening his anger at the people who hurt him. Guilt couples with this feeling, but he takes private pleasure in the kind of resentment felt by someone he cares deeply about, resentment he has long since overcome and outgrown with thoughts oriented by the importance of forgiveness. He can almost feel vicariously through him, that desire for justice, as though by feeling it outside of himself, it becomes more acceptable. Even those feelings alone are enough to satisfy him, and that’s when he begins to realize how much he had longed to let someone know just how much he suffered in that particular respect. Lucius lays down his walls with no more hesitation barring him back and welcomes Raven inside.

“…I was harassed relentlessly, as you already know.” he begins, starting smaller as a jumping point. “I was teased by my peers, bullied by my mentors and guardians… There wasn’t a day that passed when I wouldn’t be made fun of. Often, it was because of my appearance. I wish that it stopped at name-calling, but the other children, especially the older boys, would, um… lay their hands on me in order to humiliate me. Things like… pulling my hair, once even slicing it clean off to see if I would stop looking like a girl then…”

“Yeah. I remember these stories,” Raven acknowledges soberly. He continues to hold Lucius to him, fingers weaving through his hair, which flows long and prevailing against such sharp teasing. “What else?”

“Yes. And they would… grope me, and laugh, make a spectacle of… of treating me like I was a girl they could flirt with, but with all the crude aggressiveness they would be able to give me because I was actually a boy. Most of it blurs together into name-calling and touching, but sometimes, it would get rather heavy-handed. Th-they would… take turns… and they were never punished much for it. Instead, it… it was I who was…”

Raven never heard Lucius weave a skein that particular hue before. His hand stills. He can already see where this might be going. How any benevolent higher power could permit such a gentle, compassionate boy who had already lost everything to suffer at the feet of such hellions soars beyond his comprehension. Just imagining the framework of a scene like that unfold jabs cruelly at his heart, fires him up into wishing he could warp to his past and arrive to stand by Lucius when no one else would. To know that their indecent disrespect was resolved with the victim’s penance instead of the perpetrators…

“I would love to wring their necks. Each and every one of them,” hisses Raven. “Especially the adults who should have been watching over you!”

“Now, Raven…” he chastises. “They were only children. I’m sure if confronted about it now, at least half of them would be sorry for it.”

“I’d still kick their butts. It’s a shame no one did that so they’d learn their lessons sooner.”

“Children are one thing, but…” Lucius’s voice quivers. “You won’t like what you hear next.”

“It doesn’t matter how much I like it if it’s the truth.” He resumes combing his fingers through his locks, his other arm scooping him close with unrelenting vigor. “And anyway, this isn’t about me and my sensibilities, now is it? You’re the one who had to suffer through it. You hated it more than I do right now, lying here comfortably in bed, lending you my ear. So go on. You’re off to a good start.”

Lucius airs out his nerves with an ample sigh, further guided to a more stable mindset with Raven’s support. “I’ve… never uttered a word of this to any living soul,” he prefaces, digging his fingertips into Raven’s shirt. “So… It may be difficult to put into words. For that, please forgive my, ah… fumbling.”

Raven shifts to his back, carrying Lucius with, nestling him halfway atop him with his head positioned at the crook where arm meets shoulder. “Tell me as much as you are willing. I’ve always confided in you… I should like to think it goes both ways.” He unearths his hand from behind him and laces their fingers together. “Let there be no secrets between us. You know I will love you even at your darkest.” He brings their bound hands together to grace the back of Lucius’s with a kiss. “I came this far to get you back. I wouldn’t go through so much trouble if I didn’t.”

He carries his words on absolute certainty, candidly as Raven always is, as if there could be no doubt he means precisely what he says. Caught between a sigh and a dry sob, Lucius practically smashes his face against the side of his chest as he envelops him fervently with the available side of his body.

“Oh, my lord, you’re… You’re more than I think I deserve…!”

Raven snorts, almost a laugh. “Really? Stop it with the self-effacement. I think you deserve more than anyone could possibly give. I’m only doing the bare minimum a good friend should be able to. I’m already confident that whatever you tell me won’t turn me away from you. We’ve been through too much together as it is. So quit worrying about that and just let it out.” He squeezes his hand, knowing Lucius. “And… I’m right here. I’ll always bring you back into the present should you need me.”

Lucius swallows in preparation, bolstered by his onslaught of reassurance. He turns inward to face his demons again, this time wearing Raven’s presence like an aegis over his breast. 

“This is what I wanted to explain to you, back at the inn… Why I was so fearful. I wasn’t afraid of you at all. When we embrace in such a way, when… we get carried away, I am transported. But it’s to a place far away from you. My mind plays tricks on me. I start to have these horrific flashbacks, just like when I have my fits, and I feel as though memories I buried deep within me crawl out to get me. I’m… reliving them. You become someone else.”

“Someone… else,” repeats Raven carefully, uncomfortable with the idea.

“People like… my teacher.”

Raven peers down at him in the cracking dawn. “Him?!”

“Yes… The one who made it his mission in life to mistreat me. His insults and his canings weren’t the only ways he broke me. He…” Lucius gulps down the sandiness of his throat. “He would sometimes m-molest me.”

“Lucius…!” Even lead through his explanation with a vague idea of what to expect, somehow it wasn’t enough to prepare him for the disturbing weight of that man’s crimes upon Lucius.

“The… The first time, as it usually is, was to check if I was lying about my boyhood… The orphanage was for boys, not girls, so they had to make sure I wouldn’t serve as an improper distraction. I’m sure everyone there either stared at my pelvis or felt me up at least once. It was the only ‘boyish’ thing about me. Mostly, it was just the teasing. The other children loved to do it. I wasn’t old enough to learn much of anything for a while, so for my earliest years, I spent most of my time hiding instead of playing, which also got me in trouble.”

“Some of this sounds familiar,” observes Raven.

“Let me… Let me work myself up to it, please.”

“Sorry. Go on.”

“No, it’s alright. I think I like having you break me off from my wandering mind, if only for a moment.” Lucius plants a kiss on his chest, and counts his blessings for the hundredth time that he’s ensconced so close to him and not someone else. Raven draws circles into his back, electrified by a token of affection so simple as that. 

“I told you just a little bit ago that other children would touch me and play with me. Allow me to illustrate. One group made it a game to lift up my ‘skirt’ as they passed, whistle at me, and treat me like no gentleman should ever treat a real woman. They were a boorish bunch, but I was the closest thing to a girl they had, and I was alienated and objectified for it.”

“That pisses me off,” growls Raven, paving his inflamed anger over with a hasty, “…Go on.”

“So, it turned out I was quite the distraction for them, after all. That only caused our caretakers even more hassle. Crueler personalities, like that teacher who made my life hell, saw fit to pull the problem out by the root. I was that root. It… It solved nothing, of course. Today, I don’t think he was ever trying to correct anything about me. I was merely an outlet for… for his frustrations. And then… for his misplaced lust.”

Bile swims in Raven’s gut. In his outrage, he clings to Lucius tighter as he narrows his eyes at the ceiling. “That bastard…”

“Oh, the look he would give me when I struck the wrong chord with him was so black and hateful,” chokes Lucius. “I would talk back to him without meaning to, though I was only questioning his incongruous behavior in light of the Eliminean scripture we were all taught to uphold. H-He… would take me to the cellar and… oh, they’re all… uh, u-unspeakable things. I would rather spare you the details. F-For now, at the very least. I can’t…”

“But I want to…” He stops himself, just about biting his tongue. “Agh, you’re right. I don’t know if I could handle it. Not right now. I’m already seeing fire. But…” He trails his hands lower down his back, just to the midpoint where he’s fairly confident it won’t set off any of Lucius’s alarms. “It seems like something I should know about. Just so I don’t… remind you of him. Anything but that.”

A sad murmur crops out of Lucius’s throat. “There’s too much damage. I’ve been touched everywhere.”

“…That’s more than I’ve ever done!” fumes Raven, his fingers twisting into fists. “And I’m the one who’s _supposed_ to be… your…”

Swept away by Raven’s enraged grief, Lucius squeezes his eyes shut, as though bracing for his heated storm.

“I wish I could let you touch me…” he murmurs somberly into his chest. “More than anything, I want your touch to replace theirs… I want it to feel _good_ …”

Anger gives way to sympathy again, and Raven bundles him up tighter. “Hey… Listen to me. As much as I want that, too, I’m not about to rush things. I could even manage holding back absolutely for you. If it’s that painful, we don’t have to do it at all. It’s not worth this much grief. I’m… happy… with what we already have.”

“But…” His face burns as they breach the topic. “Be… Be honest with me. You would really like to.”

“Yeah.” The heat is contagious. “I would. But the thought of you breaking down because of it really turns me off.”

Raven’s mildly crude phrasing earns him a dainty, embarrassed shove. He wasn’t expecting it, so he barks out a brief laugh.

“What? Sensitive, are we? Who _would_ be turned on by that?”

The ensuing gap in conversation leaves enough space for Raven’s mind to plunge down the appalling implications, which infuriate him all over again.

“Ugh, forget I said it. Damn it! Why are people so… dreadful? I’m sorry, Lucius.” He glides his hand up and down his back in a desperate endeavor to comfort him.

“It’s only some, not all,” reminds Lucius. “A select few, I think. You’re right… If it’s with someone who loves you, they should be more worried than eager.”

“And it sounds to me like you’ve never had anyone who overstepped your boundaries care about you.”

“Well…” Lucius places a thoughtful pause there, though he knows exactly what he wants to say before he even began. “Save for you.”

“Hey,” objects Raven, some genuine offense sinking into his voice as he defends his actions. “I would never have done that if I knew any better. Surely you know that, right?” He peers down at Lucius, seeking confirmation. “I’m not the most tactful or courteous guy out there, and I do my fair share of heckling you, but that? I’d have to be lower than dirt to take advantage of you like that.”

Lucius meets his eyes, and in return, he smiles to restore his confidence, bringing a hand up to stroke the side of his face with just his fingertips, delicately, close to his ear. “Fear not, love. I never thought for one second that you were ever trying to force me into anything. I always came to my senses, and when I did, I blamed my fears, not you. If… If you would like to know my feelings on our bedroom activities, I…” Even in the wan light, Raven watches the tint of his cheeks change from spring to summer. Lucius falters, fumbling for the fortitude to put ineffable concepts to words. “…would like to know how it feels… to be loved by you.”

Like a wildfire, Lucius’s blush spreads to Raven as well. It wasn’t so much the way he looked when he admitted his desires, but that he did, and how he chose to deliver his words. He wants him, and that knowledge by itself is enough to light the torch he will keep carrying for this man for as long as they have each other.

“Then… You’re fine with me… doing things to you.” He skirts his hand lower, past the small of his back, and anticipates Lucius’s reception. His blue eyes pop open, lips parting in the aftershock. Raven isn’t sure what to make of that, so he retreats his advance and folds his hands back together over his slender waist. The mild surprise washes away, replaced by a contrite smile.

“No… That was fine,” he reassures. “Just unexpected. You may do it again.”

“Again…” With even more caution than before, he sweeps his touch lower again, where it was just before. Lucius no longer opens his expression in surprise; his smile warms up, instead. 

“I feel perfectly content,” he observes. “My mind isn’t slipping anywhere dark. I feel safe… and loved.”

Happiness bubbles inside of Raven, but after listening to his secrets, his positive emotions reel back by the horror he felt hearing Lucius’s plight. If that touch was okay just then, then when won’t it be? And then, more than ever, he fears him slipping from his grasp and back into the arms of a former rapist. All this time, he had been doing just that: transforming before his lover into a menacing, torturous shape to heartlessly consume him. That, perhaps, is the most disturbing element of all: being replaced by the thing he wants to protect him from. Not even a day ago, he’d been replaced by a substantial, physical threat, and maddeningly enough, that threat took Lucius in the same savage, humiliating way that damaged Lucius’s ability to love and trust _him_. Lucius’s wounds are fresh and stinging. Hatred pours into his body like a vessel overfilled. Lucius doesn’t look so content anymore, either.

“My lord…?” he questions, concerned, lifting his head.

“…I want to end everyone who devastated you,” he replies through gritted teeth. “And I know exactly who to start with.” He lifts his body from its supine position; Lucius clings to him, ensnaring him arms and all in a desperate effort to keep him here.

“No! Stay here with me! Please…!”

“How can I let him off the hook so easily, when he has so much he needs to answer for…? Lucius, I’m sorry, but I can’t let him get away with abusing you.”

“But Lord Ra— ah, Raven!” His hold on him tightens as he feels the other man’s muscles start to move. “Remember what I told you? There’s no need for—”

“Who said I’m about to kill him? Maybe a more suitable punishment would be to ensure he never spreads his foul seed around as long as he lives…” He shrugs Lucius off him with a robust jerk of one arm, but has to wriggle away a little harder when Lucius sticks back on with the force of his entire sylphlike body, smushing his face against his back as he wholeheartedly protests Raven’s leaving.

“No! You mustn’t!” Raven continues with his operation as though Lucius doesn’t encumber him at all, rising from the bed and scooping up the axe he kept near it. “It isn’t a good idea! I don’t want you near that man ever again! Do you hear me?”

The glisten of the hefty blade’s metal flashing in the young daylight calls to the violent impulse quaking in his bones. He scarcely pays the squabble of his partner any heed, bears his haunches down upon his lap, and rips himself off the older male when he rises abruptly, severing them completely. He perches a hand on his hip as he heaves the axe over his shoulder, scowling down at the distraught monk on the bed.

“You’re not following after me this time, you hear? This is between me and him.”

“And me! Don’t you think I have a right to handle my tormentors on my own terms, too? S-Stay out of this!”

“But you’re in no condition to settle any scores.” He gestures with a sweeping hand to his bandaged foot.

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it, you…” Lucius shakes his head, face frozen in catastrophe. Outrage clenches his vocal cords. He almost insulted him. “I cannot believe you… After everything I just told you, about the trouble you might cause us, all for _this_?”

“I can’t shake the thought, Lucius! I’ve tried. He must pay. He’s right where I want him, and you expect me to squander such an opportunity and let it plague me for the rest of time?”

He lowers his head, recognizing the futility of his struggle but not ready to resign. “…I deplore violence. Leave him alone.”

“So, what… You’re trying to _protect_ him now?” pries Raven, more accusatory.

The monk clutches at the fabric over his chest, as though stopping blood flow from a wound. His voice drips with agony. “This is just like the night you left me at the inn...”

With those poignant words, Raven reconsiders everything he just tried to do. He says nothing, but lowers his weapon for Lucius.

“…We’re tired, my love,” murmurs Lucius. “And I would rather we just… move past this. No more dwelling. Please, just… stay with me. Don’t go. I would rather not be left alone right now.”

That seals Raven’s next actions. He huffs in defeat and sets it aside completely, feeling like a tremendous fool for getting worked up enough to pick it up in the first place.

“You really are good at deterring me,” he remarks with an indignant edge. “You know just what to say. I hope you’re happy.”

Lucius releases a long, exasperated sigh of relief, both hands in his lap now. “Thank blessed Saint Elimine for that. It keeps you alive.”

Just how many more times will he have to conciliate this man before they leave the castle? Before they leave Khathelet? Even _after_ they leave Khathelet? Lucius begins to feel even more tired than before, but he won’t rest until Raven comes back to bed with him. When he just stands there prickly like a cactus houseplant, Lucius extends his arms palms-up, and Raven accepts. Lucius scoots backwards, Raven comes forth, and at last, the monk has him where he wants him. He lies on his back and pulls him into his arms, letting him rest against his chest this time.

“There…” He drags his dull fingernails in soothing streaks against the back of Raven’s neck. “We have better ways to make amends. Not with weapons, nor with blood… Please pray with me that Lord Sebastian learns his lesson, pays a price for it, and grows into someone who doesn’t take, but gives, and gives without the expectation that he is owed something.”

Raven bristles, twists his body in Lucius’s embrace, but Lucius continues before he can protest, transforming his arms from curtains draping to a cage encasing. He nuzzles the side of his face close to his ear and softens his voice even more.

“I know that sounds impossible to you. But even the most hateful and selfish can overcome it.” He dwells on the man who struck his father’s heart motionless with the dagger he has always carried since then, a man he had the strange fortune to meet during his travels across Elibe with Eliwood, Hector, and Lyn. His own heart pulses in panic; had he gotten that returned to him? Shaking those fleeting concerns off, he continues with the point he had been driving. “I would rather extend him that space to grow, not cut him off, whether that be his life stubbed or… whatever cruelty you had in store for him.”

“He’s too far gone to be saved,” mutters Raven, muffled against Lucius’s body. “He could hurt someone else.”

“People are more likely to hurt others when they have been hurt themselves. You, my lord, are my case in point.”

“Lucius?” He lifts his head. “Shut up.”

“No, not this time.” He kisses him on the lips defiantly. “Not until I am finished speaking.”

“You talk a lot for someone who begged me to go back to sleep.”

“Now, you listen!” He forces his head back down to his chest. Raven submits, but he pushes air out of his nostrils in one loud puff. “I don’t want this to escalate into another argument. You and I both have our differing views on how to handle those who wronged us. I don’t think anything I might have to say will convince you to drop your objections. Do not be mistaken. I… hate him too,” Lucius adds, strained as he admits so. “More than that, I hate what he did to me. But more rewarding to me would be for him to shed his old ways, and I will beseech Saint Elimine to attend him on that matter, for it is out of my hands now. And bless her that it is… Ah, Lord Raymond… Raven— oh, whatever I shall call you; I cannot be consistent with you, now can I?”

“You’ll put me to sleep if you don’t stop jabbering,” Raven drawls.

“Fine, fine!” Lucius ruffles his hair in retaliation, making it as messy as possible. “You’re the one who wanted me to talk in the first place, remember?”

“Not about nothing.”

Lucius frowns, a little offended at this dismissal, even though he knows it to be facetious. “Well, it is hardly ‘nothing’, as you will soon find out. Rather than focusing on who did the damage, I would rather we focus on the damage itself.”

Interest piqued, Raven gets thrown out of a short-lived, distracted musing on how Lucius talks so freely in his company almost exclusively. “And how would you like to go about that?”

“I want… to try undoing it. All those years of being made to feel like my body is nothing but a spectacle, a toy to play with, a… an outlet for depravity… I want to conquer those feelings.” He swallows, trying to keep his voice from wavering too much. “I want those shadows looming over me to take on a different form. I want… I want you to help me recast them into something I need not fear any longer.”

Raven lifts himself from Lucius’s chest, balancing himself on the palms of his hands as he gazes down at the monk who implores him with such elective vulnerability. The gentle, sleepy light of a new day highlights his uncanny beauty, celestial in its colors: the sun-touched spill of spun gold across the pillows, eyes so blue he could fall into them. He’s not feminine to him, he’s divine, but wrought by earthbound concerns that tint the whites of his swollen eyes pink and draw his eyebrows into high, worried arcs. He can see where darkness battered him in the bruises that never healed. It is fragile, too, enough to scare him. Sharing his sinister past proved an ultimate form of trust, something Raven cherishes, but it’s also an imposition. Here he is, being asked to help him mend invisible injuries, a daunting prospect when the only times he’s ever attempted to lay with him ended in all sorts of aching. They’re not just mere injuries; they’re deep scars. How can he not be even a little bit intimidated? Won’t he just keep breaking him? 

And then, Lucius shows him a tender, inviting smile, and coupled with the adoration shining in his eyes, he chases away some of his inhibitions. The bolder part of Raven steps up to the challenge.

“Are you sure?”

He nods, the placid confidence never slipping from him. “I want to show you just how much I love you.”

“You have countless other ways to do that. Just because I want it this way doesn’t mean you have to.”

“And I already told you: I do.” He reaches up to caress his cheek. “I would love to communicate just how inseparable you are to me… not just through words and deeds, but with our bodies entwined. I want to earn the courage to do that.”

“You’re a monk.”

All the maturity and grace in Lucius caves to shocked embarrassment as his comment throws him off-guard, which gradually melts into added petulance.

“J-Just what are you saying?”

Raven grins, triumphant for inflicting his desired effect. “It doesn’t seem very holy to harbor such desires, Lucius,” he teases. Lucius continues to glow with the fervor of dawn’s first blush, averting his eyes so Raven can’t read them. He chokes his retorts back with ineffectual twitches of his lips. As if to make up for shaming him, Raven leans in and kisses his cheek, humor in his hum.

“I’m only kidding, you dolt. Besides, I’m… happy. That you really do want to share this with me. That you trust me enough to let me be the one to help you.” He drops to his forearms and aims for his lips instead, fostering only brief contact in favor of peering into his eyes. With his back to the windows, Raven’s dance in shadows, but they’re familiar to Lucius; the warm browns of his irises seep into his soul without the aid of sunbeams to help him see them. Even with his body nestled beneath his and his tunic hiked to his thighs by virtue of shifting around under sheets, with his past exposed before him, he finds oasis here. It might even be especially thanks to granting him access to the suppressed secrets not even he wanted to acknowledge, only to be loved so gently in return, that he feels more secure than ever.

“Of course it would be you.” He bumps their noses together with a screwy smile so unabashedly heartfelt he can’t quite dignify it into a perfect crescent. “It can only be you.”

“I won’t let it be anyone else ever again,” vows Raven as he bundles the smaller man protectively into his broad arms, disappearing into the crook of his neck to be wrapped in his alluring scent. Lucius places his hands on the sides of his waist in return and shuts his eyes with a smile so serene it could lure devils into wanting paradise.

The soft light of dawn always breaks the night.

“In time…”

“Yes. We’ll take it slow,” agrees Raven with a yawn. “I think now’s just a good time for cuddling, anyway.”

Lucius beams, riding his emotional high unbridled. “I’d love that!”

“Yeah, keep up that kind of excitement for the future. You’ll need it.”

“Lo-L-Laymond!”

He falls subject to painful, snorting laughter. “Gods. Go to bed already, you mess.”


	11. Trouble Afoot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning:  
> -blood  
> -mild, childish homophobia
> 
> Whoa, I think that's it. Things have been rocky for me these days, moving into a new, unfinished place and all. I just got internet after not having it for a while, so that's HUGE! Just like this fic, which is also getting kind of HUGE! I think I'm just invested.

“It’s really not here…”

Raven pulls his attention away from the frost-cloaked horizon outside their windows to Lucius, who rummages around their sparse belongings on his knees. His back is turned to him, but the bewildered strain squeezing his vocal cords paints a vivid picture of how his face must be drawn with heavy lines of concern. Raven’s chest depresses slowly with his great sigh. He’s not ready to welcome any more problems that might hinder vacating Khathelet expediently.

“What’s not here?”

“My memento…”

He knows how important that old dagger is to Lucius, but he rolls his eyes anyway because being presented an obstacle of such significant insignificance just before they’re ready to leave irks him. “Well, what did you expect? Lord Stuckup probably filched it when he disarmed you in the first place.”

Lucius rests his haunches against the backs of his calves, dropping his arms in his lap and tipping his head down in resignation. “I thought so, but I had hoped against my better understanding that it might be here.”

“I’m guessing you won’t leave until you have it, huh?”

“It is all I have left of my father, my most prized possession. I’m sorry.” 

“Well, that’s fine.” Raven leaves the misty vista and roves toward the center of the room, standing just behind his partner with a hand propped on his hip. “I understand. I’m not going to stop you, but I also don’t want to deal with this family for much longer. I just want to hit the road and be done with this. So finish pulling yourself together and make your request.”

Lucius twists around, a quaint smile gracing the worries of his features. “Yes, my lord. If they continue to be accommodating, it shouldn’t be too much trouble.”

As it turns out, their accommodations extend into the next morning, but it takes more trouble than Lucius, Raven, or any of the servants who search Sebastian’s quarters bargained for. To the mercenaries’ relief, Sebastian himself is nowhere to be found, so they’re saved from that unpleasant encounter. However, nobody could unearth the missing dagger. Servants and retainers alike scoured his personal effects, the armory, and even the kitchens for it, but every knife they present to Lucius is unfamiliar to him, and each time he appraises a blade in the light, dread cuts into him deeper.

“No… It’s beautiful, but this isn’t mine.” He thumbs the turquoise and abalone inlay with care before handing it back to the servant apologetically. 

“I’m sorry,” he professes with a repentant demeanor that could rival his. “We’ve searched high and low, but it’s nowhere to be found.”

Lucius can’t conceal the totality of his downcast reaction, but he tries to cover it up with a smile and the geniality of his voice. Raven’s growing impatience burns into him, and he folds his hands together against himself as a comforting bolster against his own feelings. “If it’s turning out to be this much trouble, I suppose it might be best if I let it go.”

Raven breaks out of silent, simmering agitation to question Lucius with a note of surprise. “You’re sure?”

He nods, maintaining his eye contact with the endless red sprawl of the carpet against stony corridors. “I’m sure. It is just… an object, after all. I don’t need to carry that old thing with me to hold onto my memories. Besides…” and he laughs, “it’s pretty morbid of me to do so, don’t you think?”

“But you carried it with you for all these years… and you’d just give it up like that?”

The servant interrupts their exchange with a raise of his hand. “Sir? There may be one place we haven’t looked…”

Raven scowls with an intensity that makes his eye twitch. “Don’t tell me.”

“It’s possible…”

Lucius purses his lips and continues fighting against the necessity of retrieving it. “No, I have made my mind up.” He clutches his wrist. “We can let it go. I am ready to move on without it.”

His scowl rips into a snarl as Raven jerks his head around at the sound of approaching footsteps, but it is only another servant, a kitchen maid. Lucius bristles, too, especially because Raven does. The monk watches her approach, eyeing the knife she holds up, but he shakes his head, noting how much bigger it is than the one he seeks. Her shoulders sink.

“There’s seriously no more… unless you want me to start plucking the cleavers out of the drawers?”

“No, that’s alright. We can end the search,” urges Lucius, growing increasingly uncomfortable with the notion of even one last glimpse of his penetrating eyes. “I have caused you all so much trouble already.”

“Then… I will have the marquess informed,” she decides. 

“Now, hold on,” Raven interjects. She nearly trips in her haste to halt. “Hasn’t anyone bothered to check that wretched infidel’s person himself?”

A distasteful expression overcomes her, and she swallows. “Um… I don’t rightly know.”

“Can you take me to him?”

Lucius grabs onto his arm and pulls with the tenacity of a cat vying to escape bathwater, enough that the bigger mercenary stumbles a little. “I have _relinquished_ it already, so we will be on our way,” he asserts politely through teeth.

The other servant finds his place to speak. “If I may offer my humble opinion, I don’t see why you need to rush. My lord has offered you to stay for however long you needed on account of your condition.”

“That’s nice of him, but we want to leave,” Raven insists. “I hate stuffy castles, especially this one, and I don’t know why he’s being so generous to a couple of lowlife mercenaries like us. I’m not interested to find out why, either.”

“Forgive my impudence, b-but does it need to be anything deeper than an apology?” the servant questions, meek against Raven’s harsh personality.

“And do I have to have more reasons than simply not wanting to be here?” He looks to Lucius and hands him back the staff he repurposed into a cane. “We will leave once he hands back that dagger.”

“Now, Lord Ray—“

“I can’t stand the thought of him keeping that,” argues Raven vehemently but on a quieter voice. “He doesn’t get to have anything of yours. Got that?”

Lucius fights the urge to throw himself against the wall, sink to the floor, and groan loudly in wordless protest against Raven’s ridiculousness. It would be very immature and perhaps not suitable for other company to behold, so he clings to the tatters of his composure and makes a face that communicates the same idea instead. “Why do you care more than I all of a sudden?”

“You should care a little more. It’s your memento, isn’t it?”

The servant glances back and forth, rather unequipped for handling a spat between strangers. Lucius reads the air, this close to giving into Raven’s demands just so they can stop stirring such a scene, but to pit that option against the idea of getting mixed up with Sebastian again would be worth seeing in the arena. He sighs to release some of his exasperation and drops Raven’s arm.

“It is, but only just that. Leaving it behind could be symbolic for me, you know.”

He becomes more receptive. “Oh?”

“Yes. That dagger, in a way, represents the plunge of my past into its first darkness. It killed my father. I… have come to terms with it, so I think, perhaps, leaving it behind here might be better after all. I don’t need to carry something like that with me any longer. …He can have it.”

Raven mulls over Lucius’s poignant explanation for a few moments. “…Is that what you’ve decided?”

With a firm nod, Lucius replies, “Yes.”

As much as he was warming up to the opportunity to possibly throttle Sebastian after all, his sympathetic side remains in Lucius’s hands, and guided by this, he relents. “In that case, he can keep the damned thing.” He diverts his gaze to the servant. “We’ll be heading off shortly.”

“Very well, then. The marquess will know of it very soon.”

The maid had left, after all. In the meantime, the servant escorts the pair of mercenaries through the castle. They remain quiet, lost in thoughts and observations, hyper-aware of every bump and echo that surrounds them, every voice. It could be a trick played by their own disquietude, but tension permeates the atmosphere in its uncanny silence, how the sounds of life ring distant and on high, like ghosts creeping and moaning somewhere in the rafters. Raven’s attention draws to the apprehension Lucius wears, but he says nothing to it, only imagines the reason it dampens his expression. They’re all things that can only be spoken between them alone. Lucius catches him staring, notes the softness glinting in his hard eyes, and smiles warmly. Raven softens even more.

And then, in no time, they’re at the gates, welcomed into the vast embrace of Lycia beyond. The freedom of belonging nowhere but the roads and forests and grassy knolls beckons their gladdened hearts and their pace hastens, as though being pursued by the towering fortification in all its imposing immobility. Nothing can keep them there, or anywhere like it. They can choose any direction they please. In their broadening glee they start grinning to each other and bolting into a run, eager for the life they share returned to them, the coltish spirit of their childhood taking over until Lucius trips and they revert back to their mature concerns.

“Are you okay?” Raven asks as he kneels beside him, taking his hand to help him back up.

Lucius still laughs, brushing some dry, hoary grass off his cape as he’s leveraged back to his precarious feet. “Yes, I’m fine… I almost completely forgot about my leg!”

“As did I. And you were even limping with a staff.” Raven unravels some weeds from his hair, smirking at their unbridled behavior. “How could we be so remiss?”

Lucius shakes his head, beaming back at him with playful lights dancing in his eyes. “We must have been possessed.”

Raven glances at the far-off castle grounds, around the skeletal, budding bushes and the nearby path, but decides to toss his concerns to the wind as he cups Lucius’s face in one hand, brings him close, and kisses him full on the lips, not caring who sees. In fact, let them see, he thinks boldly, especially if Sebastian is still watching from wherever the hell he spirited off to. He had a comeback prepared before then, but it slipped away with the shift in his thoughts. Closing their kiss with that idea, the creases of his expression vanish as he peers at Lucius’s flushed glow with grave intent.

“I’d love to linger here in this good mood of ours, but we should probably hurry even faster, if we can.”

The color begins to evaporate in his cheeks, the urgency of their situation legible on his face as he reads the meaning flashing behind Raven’s intense eyes. He cements his understanding by tilting his head behind him to give Castle Khathelet another assessment, then nodding quickly at his partner so fast his mane bobs.

“I shouldn’t run like this, but…”

Before he can wax guilty, Raven scoops him up off the ground with a grunt, much like he did when they were in town. “You’re so light, it’s hardly a problem.” His arms encircle his buttocks, almost like a seatless saddle, and he holds him close, their bodies perpendicular. “We need to get you some meat to eat.”

Lucius wraps his arms around his shoulders and rests his head against him complacently. “You always suggest that whenever _you_ want some. I had my chance at the feast, but given my circumstances, I couldn’t find my stomach.”

A rumble quakes through Raven’s stomach, because by mentioning meat, he kind of undid himself. “Well, at least you’re even easier to carry. That’s about the only good part, especially considering how sore I am.”

“I’m sorry…”

“A little soreness is worth having you back.” He lets his nose fall against Lucius’s scalp, taking his next inhale generously and enjoying the soothing high his soft scent yields. “If I get tired, I can always take a quick break and let you walk beside me.”

Lucius shuts his eyes in solace. “That works for me. I can give you a massage later to make up for it.”

“It’s a deal,” he accepts, stealing a quick peck to the top of his head. No exchange of favors was needed, but he knows Lucius dislikes encumbering him and loves providing for him. He had served him for years, and even though he was no longer beholden to him that way, he sticks to him like an extra limb, a part of himself that’s pretty handy to have, and amputating him would be painful for the both of them. Everything they do for each other is founded not on a moribund relationship between liege and retainer, but mutual love. Besides, the promise of Lucius humming pleasantly as his hands knead into him is too alluring to turn down.

When it comes to providing for each other, though, the grim reality spanning before them is that Lucius won’t be able to do mercenary jobs for some time if walking proves this difficult. If it lasts longer than a few days, Raven contemplates how they could make ends meet, the safest places Lucius could remain when he’s off earning their bread. It never bothered him so much to be separated from Lucius for short periods before, but emerging from their recent struggle, he can’t bear the concept of leaving him by himself for too long lest it be the last time they part ways for real. What— has he been traumatized, too? Remembering not to tarry, he takes his first step when the holly bush next to them rustles, and he’s startled so badly he almost drops Lucius when he whirls about to face it. He readjusts his sloppy hold so he gains reign over a free arm.

“Who goes there?” he demands on a low, threatening voice, hand stretching behind him for the handle of his axe. He waits. Only the swallows respond with their clipped chirps as they careen low in the fields. Raven doesn’t register anything but what he doesn’t see past the overgrown shrub and the thicket lurking behind it.

“Perhaps a wild animal,” suggests Lucius on scarce breath. “I think I saw a robin flit off…”

“Seems kind of small to be making all that noise.” He makes an attempt to relax, but finds objectionable success. “A deer? Maybe a badger? A fox?”

“Or a marten.”

“A—“ Raven cuts himself short, realizing Lucius never said that, and mines his brain for the familiarity that rings. He relaxes with a snort. “…Sneaky little twerp. Very clever; now, come out where we can see you.”

The brambles come alive again to deposit a ratty child into the tall grass below. He perches there like a frog, grinning with triumphant cheek.

“I didn’t know he was also your _girl_ friend,” he jibes, and not a second later bolts off into the woods with untamed laughter.

Raven stands there stupefied for a moment, swallowing back his embarrassment but unable to keep it from scalding his skin reddish-pink as he plops Lucius to the ground roughly. “Get over here!” He tears off into the shrubs after the scamp. “Is _that_ all you have to say to me?”

Lucius sits stricken by a thunderous fear. That kid had baited him before, so if the same thing is happening now, his goal must be to taunt Raven, distract him, and separate them, leaving him vulnerable and alone. How stupid does Sebastian think he is, employing the same trick twice? Well, this time, he is prepared to prevent his own kidnapping.

“Lord Raymond!” he calls, reaching for his Shine tome and sneaking a quick glance behind him. “Don’t fall for his teasing! Come back to me!”

He doesn’t listen, just gets hung up scrambling for the agile monkey of a child. He snaps the branch he tries to climb and falls not only for his mockery, but to his ass in the woods. The kid finds Raven a goldmine of comedy. In the meantime, Lucius decides to get off the ground and follow them, wary of anyone’s approach behind him. Horses prancing across the fields at a distance alarm him. His pattering heart begs the pair of hooligans to quiet down.

“You two!” he admonishes at a whispering yell, clutching at his staff like a lifeline to himself and flashing beggar’s eyes at them. “May I have a word? Settle down a moment!”

He successfully nets the boy’s attention, who stops his ascent and crouches on the branch he occupies with the humor vaporizing from his smile. His head droops, and he no longer looks Lucius in the eye, opting to watch Raven bat twigs off his hind end instead. Unfortunately for Lucius, Raven’s anger remains undiffused.

“I’ll settle down once he _gets_ down,” retorts the redhead with a sulkier twist to his grimace. Martin chuckles, pleased to annoy.

“You won’t be so mad at me anymore when I tell you my big news.”

Piqued, Raven’s face evens out a touch. Lucius’s curiosity could kill an alley full of cats, as out of the loop with their short history together as he is. Raven crosses his arms over his chest and fixes his gaze on the orphaned thief. “Big news, huh? Just how big?”

Martin grins, swinging down a branch, landing on it with a wobbly thud. “News! Good news for all, far and wide, all across Khathelet and probably all of Lycia. But especially for you, me, and Lucius.”

“I’d like to hear it. But don’t tell me I have to pay.”

Martin snickers against the back of his hand. “No, don’t worry about it! It’s totally complementary.” He unsheathes a blade from his belt, the silver sheen of it flashing dark, shiny red in the groggy sunlight. “I’ve had my revenge. Sebastian’s dead.”

Lucius slaps both hands over his mouth in abject horror, the staff falling to the underbrush as his eyes peel wide for Martin, honing in on his dagger: the subtle curve of it; its lustrous, obsidian grip; how the guard’s spines arch like dragon’s claws toward the blade. In his calamitous, lightheaded daze, he takes a step backwards to save his balance, but a slender, young birch connects with his spine. He lets it take the brunt of his faltering weight as he processes all the meanings presented to him with just his gesture and statement. Raven squints up at the boy incredulously, suspiciously, as though trying to detect fraud or insincerity.

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“The proof’s in the blood.”

“It could be a sheep’s or a pig’s, for all I know.”

“What, you don’t believe me?” He descends a few more branches until he’s just above Raven’s height and shows him the blade adorned in fresh violence. “Take a look. It was a pretty nasty pig, alright.”

From this closer angle, even Raven can apprehend more reason for Lucius’s arresting dread. He raises his eyebrows and opens his mouth before he even forms the words he intends to speak, leaving his jaw slack as he looks to the dagger, Martin, and back again. He takes it from him and appraises it with a rotating wrist.

“This is…”

“It’s his own knife. I found it in his room, then decided it would be pretty rich if I stuck him with his own blade, right? Besides, he was calling me a lot of mean things, and I was mad about how he got away from you scot-free…”

“That’s…” Raven begins, but words are already tearing from Lucius’s throat, his hand clawing down his cheek as his other squeezes the top of his cloak.

“That’s _my_ dagger…! And don’t… d-don’t speak of killing someone so casually! You’re so young, you… ah…”

Overwhelmed by Lucius’s outrage, the ferocious delight in Martin’s popping amber eyes flickers out, and he averts his eyes opposite Lucius, the timbre of his voice taking on a more serious key. “It’s not the first time. I have to survive, you know. I fight to live, just like you.”

“Just like… me…” Martin can never sense the depths Lucius’s mind plunges when he repeats those words. He unhands himself and drags lower down the trunk. At this point, Raven leaves Martin’s perch for his partner’s side, grabbed by his severe display of psychological agony. 

“Hey, tone down the macabre, would you?” requests Raven with his free arm around him for extra support. “He’s… in a bad place right now.”

Martin shrugs, giving his legs a swing. “It’s just the truth, is all. But… I will say this.” He still can’t manage to deliver eye contact to Lucius. “This is the first time I… killed someone who couldn’t kill me back.”

Raven crumples his nose at the caked blood before concealing the dagger from Lucius’s sight. “What do you mean?”

“He was all locked up. He must have screwed up pretty bad somehow, because his dad arrested him and detained him in the dungeon. I was in the castle when it happened; there was a lot of racket going on between them. I know you won’t find it funny right now, but he was in the same cell he stuffed you in, and he’d already been beaten up when I snuck in, more than you. Shackled all different of course, but. But I thought… I just thought, you didn’t get the chance to get _your_ revenge, so, y’know, I figured… what a perfect chance I have… and then he couldn’t keep his mouth shut about me and my friend, so…”

“Hey, what did you call me back there, again?” questions Raven with irritation burrowed in his tone.

Martin scrunches his face in confusion. “Huh?”

“I think it was something like ‘musclehead’. What you did just there wasn’t very bright.”

Martin scoffs. “Oh yeah? You were threatening to do the same thing! What a load of hot air!” He thumps his chest. “I guess it’s just I was man enough to actually do it, and I’m only a kid!”

“Oh, I’d be careful with my words over there, you snotty whelp,” warns Raven. “You don’t want to make enemies with me all over again.”

“Can we…” Everyone’s focus lands on Lucius and his distress-mangled voice. “Can we please just… stop arguing?”

“We do have a conflict here, thanks to someone I won’t mention,” interjects Raven with a pointed glare at their thief. “Whether we argue over it or not. To put it plainly, he just assassinated nobility. And House Khathelet probably doesn’t have the faintest idea the blood is on his hands.”

Lucius grabs hold of Raven’s arm with the lunging force of a beartrap, knocking him off-kilter for a moment; he looks at him with surprise and is met with terror storming in his clear blue eyes. “W-We must go! I saw horses heading southward, so…”

“Damn it!” Raven shoots Martin another sharp glare. “Look what you did! Who do you think they’re going to be looking for first? Here’s a hint: it’s not you.”

The kid’s devil-may-care playfulness all but went to bed beneath the unease sinking his features. The mercenaries can see him swallow from their short distance away. 

“I’m…”

“We have no time to dwell on anything,” urges Lucius on a hissy whisper, tugging on Raven’s sleeve. “Pick me up! We must go!”

“Okay, you nag!” he whispers loudly. He hoists him back up into his arms and bends down so the monk can reach the staff he dropped, and then pivots around to survey the fields for activity. Complete visibility isn’t possible, but about seventy percent of the open areas unfold before him, and it’s enough for him to spot the cavalry charge. One, two, three… all dispersed in different directions, likely on a search, and the search is probably a manhunt.

“Ugh. They want answers…” He whips around and tries to squint past the rest of the thicket to see what spreads beyond. “I’m so done. I don’t want to risk dealing with them. We probably can’t outrun them, but laying low is its own issue.”

“Oh! Head to the forest west of here,” suggests Martin, hopping down from the tree. “They’ll cut through these tiny thickets in no time flat, so that’ll give you better coverage while you move.”

“And moving on horseback is tougher through the forest than by foot,” agrees Lucius.

“Exactly. Then, head north to the mountains." His disposition unravels some, showing in the slight sink of his posture and drain of his impish mirth. "…I can come with, if you’d like. I know my way around. I keep getting you into all these messes, so I should at least, uh, y’know… get you out of them,” he admits, suddenly sheepish.

“Do whatever,” dismisses Raven. “Just remember, though: if they catch us, I’m not taking your fall. And don’t try to weasel your way out of it, either.”

“They’re not gonna be catching me,” boasts Martin with his hands behind his head, twisting his body away from them as he commences his march. “I’m too slippery for that!”

“Yeah, yeah. Now let’s move!”

If Raven wanted to leave Castle Khathelet a wanted fugitive, he would have preferred it to be under the premise that he earned it himself: broke in unpardoned, slaughtered Sebastian, and took Lucius back with him. At least under that scenario, he would have anticipated the consequences and charged through in spite of them to get what he wanted. But no, it had to be because some sneaky brat thought he was being some kind of vigilante hero taking Raven’s vengeance into his own hands and combining it with his own. He thought he had washed his hands of the trouble, was looking forward to ridding himself of any and all drama related to this ugly episode so he could resume his life as a traveling mercenary with Lucius at his side. Oh, he gets to do that, but they also have to live on the run while Lucius can’t even walk. Could it get any more frustrating?

Warily, they exit the thicket through the other side and out into the dreadful open.


	12. Darkness Comprehended

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while... My hot life has been busy for me, and I've only been able to write incrementally. 
> 
> Content to watch out for here:  
> -blood and violence  
> -verbal descriptions of sexual violence with strong, offensive language  
> -genital mutilation  
> -death and dying
> 
> Woohoo!!
> 
> I hope that's everything... If it's not and I'm being forgetful, lemme know.

The year could have matured a little more for their designs. Not only does its youth beget crisp mornings, but the flora have only just stirred from winter’s slumber, too lethargic to get dressed in thick enough cloaks of foliage to provide adequate cover for their band of three. The fading mist, however thin, warrants lopsided appreciation. On one measure, it conceals them from a distance. On the other, it renders their enemies even harder to spot. Rising sunlight catches in the shroud, inspiring but revealing. Lucius keeps a hawk’s watch everywhere behind Raven from within his arms, which allows Raven to keep his eyes trained ahead. Martin watches the entire perimeter as they creep along the fields fleet of foot but trying not to draw attention to themselves, senses fine-tuned to primal heights. 

“We really ought to hurry, if we can,” advises Lucius, calm but with a hint of distress.

“We’re already rushing as it is,” Raven snaps, nipped by panic he tries to bury.

“The mist is evaporating,” continues Lucius, softer than before. He swallows. “There are so many figures out there…”

“Will you quit your blather?” he hisses. “I know! But we can’t afford to betray our position to our enemies.”

Lucius blows a sigh out in resignation, choosing not to point out how much higher Raven raised his voice in their desperate, whispered exchange. Better to prevent another heated burst of protest than to rile him up any further, he reasons. He watches the shapes weave through the fading mist, disappearing and reappearing like lost wraiths seeking a living pulse. The swish and crunch of their footsteps could never be heard by the distant soldiers, but each one detonates in his ears. Martin’s are far more muted, and perhaps that is why he hardly bothers to creep along like Raven does. He soldiers on unheeding of his surroundings as though lodged in his own world and intent on his objective. Lucius never caught the chance to understand the boy who tricked him into Sebastian’s domicile, who treats Raven like an ally when he had made himself his enemy. 

So many questions hang unasked. When they reach the caves, he’s sure they will have a better chance to learn of Martin’s role in all of this, of his past and character and the reason he felt compelled to lead him into a trap. For a few moments, his vigilance leaves their pursuers and rests on the boy. He’s as pitiful as he remembers, his frayed cloak flowing off his bony frame like a flag off a pole, his rumpled, matted nest of hair, coarse woolen trousers torn and loose-fitting and too short for him. As his legs move, different shades of browns and tans and even whites flash at him, stitches of different fabrics carefully sewn into his clothes. Had he skill with a needle and thread? Lingering his focus on the young vagrant drew his attention to a dark, profound dash of scarlet flashing angrily at him when he adjusts his collar. Though he wanted to maintain silence to protect their position in the field, Lucius can’t swallow his observation before it leaps from his throat.

“Your neck…”

In a sudden bout of self-consciousness, Martin raises his arm to cover the back of it, casually adjusting his hood so it sits up higher on his shoulders. “What about it?” he asks without bothering to whisper.

“Is that a gash?”

“Oh, probably,” he dismisses with a shrug, not once twisting his body around to face the monk. “Wouldn’t be surprised. I get hurt all the time.”

“That’s…” Lucius swallows, shaking the dismay at envisioning this child’s unforgiving, precarious lifestyle off for more pressing concerns. “It looks so fresh. What happened?”

“Mind your own business!” Martin snaps. “It doesn’t hurt and I don’t remember. I’ve got scrapes and cuts and bruises all over my body, more than I can keep track of.”

“I can take a look at it once we get to the caves,” offers Lucius softly, the concern that wells up in his chest glazing the tone of his suggestion.

“You’re too nice,” he condemns with spitting haste and white knuckles. Rocky emotions set his voice to quake. “One of these days, you’ll…” He stops himself there. “Well, anyway, we need to stay quiet!”

Lucius can swear he just witnessed the boy don a deportment similar to Raven’s. He’s grown accustomed to being scolded by him for lending relief to others, particularly to degrees that put strain on him personally or worse, endanger his very life. No matter how much he insists it is in proper alignment with St. Elimine’s teachings to become a font of succor to those who need it, Raven tries to stand in his way when he doesn’t like it. It’s not that he doesn’t approve of his kindness— there are times when he professes to admiring it, after all— but only condemns it whenever he’s worried for him, and like this, brusque and camouflaging how he truly feels. He’s done it for as long as he can remember, from day one, when he was just as young as this boy before him looks. Given those similarities, Martin is easy to read. Lucius can’t resist a smile as he drops the matter and remains mute, returning his attention to Raven briefly before sending it over his shoulder. Raven’s working hard staying vigilant and keeping him aloft in his arms, and with that in mind and a warmth in his heart, he rests his head onto his shoulder and tightens his hold in an impromptu semblance of an embrace.

Raven notices but pretends he doesn’t, averting his eyes with a burnt cheek. He does, however, reinforce his hold on his precious cargo.

The whooshing current of a river babbles in their ears the closer they get to the woodland stretch. It’s a noisy promise to obscure them further from danger. Even when the cavaliers yet approach, they manage to be welcomed by the dense cover of trees without betraying a trace of their presence. Even then, a sense of grave peril pervades the atmosphere drifting between the three travelers. They creep along in silence for a while until Lucius can no longer abide by the slight tremble of Raven’s arms.

“Do you need to set me down?” he whispers. “While your steadfast strength impresses me, we’ve been walking for some time, now.”

“I’m more worried about your leg than my arms,” grunts Raven.

“Didn’t your arm get badly hurt?”

Raven huffs through his nose sharply. “Well, how useless a pair would that make us, huh? You, with a useless leg and me a useless arm.”

“You’ve been using your useless arm enough,” Lucius points out with a knowing smile. “Allow me to use my useless leg for a bit. I think the forest is a better place for that.”

He trudges a few steps further, weighing his offer, when finally, he stops in his tracks to guide him down to the forest floor as requested. “Only for a little while,” he prefaces, keeping his hand tacked to his back in case he needs the extra support. “You have to tell me if it gets too painful.”

“I will,” he concedes, smiling cordially at him.

Reflexively, they check their surroundings beyond the trees before continuing, placated by the tranquility. Lucius takes his first wobbly, experimental step unhindered, and they proceed at a slow, skulking pace northward. As though to congratulate his successful efforts, Raven treats him to a gentle stroke of his thumb as he continues to guide him. 

Drifting through contemplations as he is, Lucius finds himself feeling safe enough to strike the conversation he wanted to save for the cave. “Tell me… How do you two know each other?”

Since his question isn’t directed toward either of the two in particular, it hovers between them unanswered for a few moments until Raven snatches the prompt first. “I met him in the town. It was the first morning you were gone. He made an offer to help me get you back.”

“Well? Did you take it?”

“No,” interjects Martin. “He outright refused. He even bullied me a little bit for wanting to help.”

“That’s not how it went,” protests Raven as hushed as he can muster while snapping. “Besides, you couldn’t even hide that it was your fault he ended up in Sebastian’s hands to begin with. Of course I wouldn’t accept help from someone who did that, no matter how desperate I was.”

“And it was a big mistake.”

“Hey. I made it out alive and with Lucius, did I not?”

“You could have saved yourself so much trouble. You wouldn’t have even needed to put on a bird costume to do it!”

“Guys, please tone it down,” Lucius requests, checking the border of the forest warily.

“Sorry,” they both say at the same time, then glance at each other and look away, ahead. It makes the monk smile.

“So in the end, you really did want to help,” concludes Lucius.

Martin hangs his head, expression indiscernible as he watches the forest’s carpet of hoary brown leaf litter, needles, and roots transpire beneath his tread. “...No. It’s just… self-interest, he replies, voice dry and faltering.

“Is it money?” asks Lucius.

“Sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“Well, you sometimes need money to get the things you need to live,” explains Martin, throat tense like his words balance on a tightrope. “And sometimes, you can’t ever steal or beg enough to get what you want.”

Lucius tries to comprehend the underlying meaning of his statement, how it applies specifically to Martin’s circumstances. The problem he runs into is how helping Raven was all a matter of self-interest to him. “Was this your way of getting revenge on Lord Sebastian? How did he wrong you?”

“He makes promises he never keeps.”

“Well, we won’t have to worry about that anymore,” Raven interjects. “His flimsy promises are all in the past.”

Martin bristles. “You’re right… B-But it doesn’t make my problems go away, either...”

There must be a whole lot that he doesn’t understand about Martin and what drives him beyond surviving in a cruel, lonely world, decides Lucius. The pangs he felt in his heart for him return with a fierce grip. “You said you had a friend before, when we crossed at the inn. Was what you said about that true?”

He keeps his head cocked down as he nods in quick bobs.

“Is… there anything we can do?”

Martin conjures no response. The whispering river swirls in the air between them, littered by the crunch, snap, and clop of their footsteps. Then, his head pops up like a gopher and he jerks up straight, slowing to a still with his hand pushed out flat to signal them to stop. Raven had already caught on before then, pulling Lucius close to his body as he perks his senses up to the meadow beyond.

A deer’s neck stands tall and erect, its soft black eyes shining even in the shadows of the woods. All three of them relax, but the adrenaline still buzzes through their nerves uncomfortably.

“That was scary…” mutters Lucius with a deep sigh, releasing his hold on Raven’s coat. The doe flicks its stubby tail and bobs its head as it trundles off, caring not for the company of humans but detecting no threat, either.

“Hopefully it serves as a distraction for them, if anything,” remarks Raven on a breath. _And not a flag for our current position._ He slackens his hold on Lucius, but not completely. “Let’s keep moving.”

Spooked like that, they hold their tongues the rest of the way. While the river’s loud presence provides a soundproof sanctuary of sorts, it carries a bane alongside its boon, the aural counterpart to the mist’s camouflage: while their passage gets swallowed up in the rush, so too do more subtle signs of enemies approaching. Nonetheless, it’s easy to take solace in the thought that scouts would be more likely to follow the paths leading to settlements first should they want to locate the mercenaries. 

Navigating the forest is one thing, but once the gentle, even terrain slopes up into a mountainside, the going gets rougher, particularly for the monk with an unstable gait. It’s when he almost twists his ankle a second time that Raven scowls and removes him from the unforgiving earth and all of its tripping hazards. Midday burns high in the horizon by the time they scale the narrow paths and steep incline, and they’re exhausted for it.

“We finally made it,” celebrates Lucius on ragged breath, smile bright in all its contrasted weariness. “It feels good to be safe…”

“Wait!” spits Martin.” They halt, then turn to look at him.

“Be… on your guard,” he warns gravely. Raven narrows his eyes at him in scrutiny.

“Are these caves dangerous?”

“...They might be,” answers Martin, swallowing as he stares into the cavern’s maw like he detects a danger only tangible to him. “There might be bandits in there or something.”

“Oh. That’s hardly a problem.” He hoists Lucius back up after setting him down momentarily. “I’d rather deal with run-of-the-mill mountain bandits than House Khathelet.” He takes a step forth toward the bowels of the mountain, disregarding it as the hazard Martin wanted to paint it as.

“Yeah, uh…”

He stops, a faint hue of annoyance coloring his tone. “What?”

Martin flinches, uncharacteristically timid. He glances around their cragged environment as though searching for something important he lost in the scrubby vegetation. After an uncomfortably prolonged lapse in speech, Martin swats the air and dismisses his previous sentence with a tremulous breath. “Nevermind. I lost track my thoughts.”

Raven sends him an even deeper look of scrutiny than before, and then communicates his mild confusion with Lucius through his eyes. They share the same wordless sentiment with different expressions. “Then let’s move.” He proceeds where he left off. Meanwhile, Lucius keeps his attention pinned on Martin as he’s carried off, curiosity and concern expanding as he examines the tension brewing behind the child’s flashing eyes and tight lips. Just when he’s about to open his mouth to speak, Martin scrunches his entire body up as though to brace for his next verbal explosion.

“Wait! You… You _really_ can’t go in there!”

Raven swerves around hard enough to jostle Lucius. “What?!” he demands to know, snappier than ever. “What is your problem? First you tell us we should hide out in the caves, then, just after our long, arduous trek uphill, you urge us not to?”

At this, the boy plasters his index finger to his mouth and taps it there like he’s trying in vain to hit the switch of Raven’s volume control, urgency blowing up in his eyes. More than ever, the mercenaries are flummoxed. Did Martin spot a scout? A bandit? Raven surveys the area for signs of life he missed, all 360 degrees of him with an eye critical enough to split boulders. Then, he treats Martin to his sharp gaze. Loudly hushed, he continues his barrage of inquiries.

“If you’re worried about the scouts, I doubt they would have made it up the mountain on horseback.”

Martin fiddles with the string tying his cape together, tilting his head down as he scrambles for words to give him. “I-It’s not that…”

“What do you have to say to us, then? Spit it out, already!”

“Lord Raymond, please…” 

“I… That knife, it… Th-that wasn’t Sebastian’s blood at all. It was his brother... Lord Stellan’s.”

“What?!” they cry in unison, horror stamped on them.

For a fleeting eternity, Lucius and Raven are robbed of coherence. Then, their minds careen in unpleasant, scattered directions, and all at once they can’t close the gates to their questions.

“Y-You didn’t—”

“DId you kill him…?”

“Why would you ever—”

Martin’s lips start to tremble, his eyes glossing over with the emotions he fights to corral within his tiny body. The mercenaries exchange looks before Lucius wiggles out of Raven’s arms, alighting with his sturdier foot and making his way over to the faltering child. He bends to his knees and holds his arms out to him, but Martin grimaces and shakes his head. Lucius relents, but wears his profound concern like a silent invitation.

“I had no choice!” he wails, dragging his forearm across his face in a rough, adamant sweep.

Raven prickles, wary of all the information he can no longer trust and how it keeps revolving around the place he can’t seem to escape from. “What is the meaning of this...? Why did you lie?”

“It’s all the same!” He adheres himself to Lucius, thumping his fist against his shoulder in soft frustration. “I _had_ to! O-Or else...”

Lucius places a careful hand against his back, accepting the minor abuse if it would console Martin even a little. “It’s okay,” he murmurs softly. “You can talk to us. We will listen. Now, I want you to breathe like I do. In… ...and out. Do it with me.”

He takes a moment, doesn’t even breathe at all for a few ticks, but he eventually complies, filling his lungs and expelling the air as the monk prescribes. It doesn’t vanquish all of his concerns, but he meets their situation with less agitation. 

“That was good. Do you feel a little calmer?”

“A-A little...” With the hand he rapped against Lucius, he clutches his clothes tightly into his balled fist. Lucius pats him on the back and prompts him into speaking again.

“Or else what?”

Martin flinches. “I… I-I didn’t kill Lord Stellan… Sebastian did.”

Though the sunlight streams down on them, the air between Raven and Lucius freezes to a dead chill. The hidden meaning of that statement worms its way into their hearts like a poisonous snake.

“So you mean to tell me… he’s alive?!” Raven roars, sending his glare far off to the castle. Martin hisses for him to be quiet between his teeth.

“Shh! Keep it down!”

“Why? Because he’ll hear me? Let him! Let him know I know he’s alive, so he knows I’m out to sever his limbs one by one!”

“Stop!!” the little thief pleads with genuine desperation wrought in his tone. “I mean it! Okay, okay, just... L-Let me explain myself…”

Numbed by the icy knowledge of Sebastian’s beating heart, Lucius swallows and tries to break past his hollow, harrowed disposition. “Please. L-Lord Raymond… I think we should at least listen to him.”

Raven crosses his arms and ejects all the breath left in him through his nostrils. “I’m mad.”

“I know, but… I have a bad feeling.” He nudges Martin away from his body and wipes at a tear streaming down the boy’s smudged cheek, not caring about his soiled sleeve. He keeps a hand propped against his shoulder and rubs it in hopes of relieving his anguish some. “Pay him no mind. You may tell me everything.”

Finding solace in the clear compassion of Lucius’s eyes and the warmth of his voice, Martin cracks open a bit more, pouting helplessly as he cries in front of them with shame heating his cheeks. “...I was about to trick you again.” Surprise touches the look he gives Martin, and he can no longer meet those pure blues any longer, burying his face in a clenched fist as he abates a sniffling sob. “I was about to lead you into the caves, just as Sebastian told me...”

It’s as though Lucius can sense that Raven is about to exclaim in outrage, for he whips his head around and holds up a palm as though to silence him. Raven drops his shoulders and continues to stew in fury without yelling his input. The monk returns his attentions to the crying kid, pushing past his own feelings to try and understand his.

“And what did he tell you to do, exactly?”

“He told me to use this knife and… tell you I killed him in revenge,” he explains. “He said to guide you to the caves and trap you. Then, I was going to knock you out so you can’t save Raven. You’ll be ambushed, surrounded, a-and have no choice but to give up. You bought into it so easily… “

“I was beginning to trust you,” snarls Raven on a low voice. “And yet you spat on that trust with this… Why?”

“Because my friend is part of the r...raisedent clergy. He knows… He knows how much I care about him! He’s old; he’s sick and he’s dying, but he won’t accept that I want to help him get better! “Oh, my time is coming soon, anyway,” he always says, but I… I won’t hear it! He saved my life; he’s always there for me when I need him, caring for a street rat like me even when he shouldn’t! I heard there’s an elixir that’s supposed to cure all sick, but… b-but if I can’t afford it, he won’t get better. So Sebastian keeps tricking me into doing dirty things for him, promising me he’ll help him, but he never does… I never do enough…” Enervated by his sobbing, he leans into Lucius for support, who welcomes him into his embrace. “He can’t bribe me anymore because I won’t fall for it, so he threatened me.”

“Scumlord,” condemns Raven, averting his glower to the caves. “What did he say?”

“Lord Stellan was going to be taking his morning prayer with him at that time. But because of last night, he got in a fight with Sebastian, and… it got so heated that he shoved that knife into him and he accidentally killed him. After that, he started going nuts, babbling and knocking things over and breaking furniture. I was hiding there at the time and he caught me red-handed. Then, he came up with his plan. If I didn’t go through with tricking you two, he swore he would blame the murder on my friend and have him put to death one way or another.”

Lucius squeezes Martin close. “His heart is black enough to engulf any light that shines upon him… He wouldn’t think twice about harming someone so carelessly for his own ends. But what you did just now… Telling us before it was too late… That was very kind and courageous of you.”

“...”

“Thank you for doing that.”

Martin slumps against him. “I just… didn’t want you to die because… of me. And I thought… why should I trust that guy, when I can trust you more...”

“Good thinking,” agrees Raven. “You’re putting those wits of yours to use. All you need to do is let us take care of him and your problems will be all over.”

“But what if you’re not strong enough?” he interjects. “What if he catches you off-guard?”

“Pff. Don’t make me laugh. I do this for a living,” Raven argues. “I have fought hordes of enemies who thought they could gang up on me dozens of times in the past.”

“Don’t get cocky, Lord Raymond… He has a point. We are not infallible.”

By this point, Martin has collected the scraps of his composure together, the weight lifted from his chest from admitting the truth. He leaves the sanctuary of Lucius’s hold and stands erect, but a worry still gnaws at him. “Yeah, I saw for myself. If you don’t enter the caves, though, then… Sebastian will know that I failed. And my friend will be…”

“We’ll go in,” resolves Raven without a shred of hesitation, boldly staring the cave itself down like an opponent to be bested. A wry grin worms its way onto his expression. “Heh. I’m on the run as it is… I might as well give them a founded reason to chase me down.”

“B-But…” begins Lucius, but then falters, hanging his head as he sorts through his new troubles. Unease twists knots into his chest as he anticipates the trials lurking ahead of them in the darkness of that cave, the ones he thought he could leave behind at last. Raven pauses for him, regards the fragile state of his emotions. Looking at him is like watching the moonlit surface of a lake, the ripples dancing in the wan light but the depths obscured from view. Nevertheless, he knows what lies there. The mercenary’s eyes soften.

“Lucius.” He raises his head. It hurts to behold the pain flickering in his eyes. “I know this must be… difficult for you. And it’s dangerous, especially in your state. That is why… you don’t have to come. Hide somewhere safer and wait for me to finish up. I’ll return for you.”

Telling him that only induces more of that flickering pain, like sparks flown from grinding metal, and he rises to full height on his knees. “No!” He scoots closer to him, hands bunched near his chest as he pleads from the bottom of his soul. “Haven’t you learned by now? That is the last thing that will make me feel better. I can’t let you go in there alone while I sit around waiting and wondering if you will ever come back. It’s more agony than I am willing to bear, especially right now. I… I am strong enough,” he decides firmly, testing his statement with a tentatively bold glance to the mountain. “I-I will face him.”

It’s clear that fear still clenches his heart like the fangs of a savage beast, but Raven can’t help but admire his tenacity in the face of it. He smiles, and it’s Lucius’s turn to soften. Martin crosses his arms impatiently, but they’re too lost in each other for a moment; Raven lends him his hands and he helps Lucius rise to the soles of his feet.

“You’re not facing him alone, either. We’ll have each other’s backs. We always have, haven’t we?”

“...Yes.” He squeezes his liege’s hands and savors one of Raven’s rare smiles just for him. Raven glances up to check if Martin was watching, stops caring once he remembers he’d already witnessed them do it once before, and leans in to satisfy his overwhelming urge to kiss Lucius’s shining, placated face. He misses, though, because at that moment, Lucius rotates about to regard Martin as well.

“Besides. If we don’t go, we won’t fool Lord Sebastian into thinking Martin has dutifully carried out his plans,” he adds.

Because the spotlight is back on him, Martin brightens up. “Yeah! So, here’s what I think: Sebastian thinks I’m working for him, but actually, I’m working for you two. That’s called a double agent,” he informs them proudly.

“I know whaphhat is,” grumbles Raven, spitting Lucius’s hair out of his mouth and wiping it. Lucius remains oblivious to his blunder.

“And it’s a good thing you had acting class, because you’re going to have to pretend you don’t know I’m going to hit Lucius.”

Raven’s eyes narrow darkly. “You’re not going to.”

“It’s going to be a feint, dummy. Here, let’s have a quick huddle and plan this out.”

“That sounds good,” agrees Lucius, clinging to the vestiges of composure. 

While he never had reason to place his trust in Martin before, he can’t find a reason for deception this time around when his affected show of vulnerability had been too genuine to be dismissed as an act. Trust may be a matter of the mind, but it is also one of the heart, and on both ends, he has been swayed to the veracity of Martin’s story. A part of him remains cautious, however. If he’s still working for Sebastian, then why won’t he have a reason to suddenly switch sides? He hatches their plot with Raven and Martin with uneasiness churning in his breast.

  


* * *

  
The dingy, winding tunnels carved into the mountain’s belly don’t accommodate travelers with pronounced limps. Each drop, each climb and ridge of the meandering cavescape sculpted by centuries of collapsing rocks or overflow pools warn them to turn back if the growing darkness doesn’t ward them off first. It’s creeping with invertebrates indistinguishable in the shadiness; it echoes; water drips off the stalactites that line the ceiling like teeth oozing with saliva, and Lucius knows too much of the demon who yearns to ambush him in the tenebrous gut of this gloomy underworld. For that reason, he never lets go of Raven, and Raven never lets go of him. 

There’s no room for reassurances of the verbal sort. Any implication that they come equipped with knowledge of Sebastian’s existence is taboo. But the way Raven’s arm hitches around Lucius’s waist is enough to communicate how he won’t let Sebastian have him again, that he will continue to remain at his side no matter the trial that awaits. And when he relieves him of walking at junctures where he can be carried without Raven slipping, Lucius curls up snugly against him, yearning to shut his eyes and tune out this hellish trench that contains a figure representing his worst nightmare but knowing better than to let his vigilance slip for even a second. In reply to his withdrawal, Raven bundles him close, touching their heads every now and then for a brief reminder that he’s here for him, _even at his darkest_ , and he always will be.

Martin guides them through the circuitous network, occasionally striking up bursts of conversation unrelated to their spelunking expedition. Although they’re aware he flourishes the stiff air between them with smalltalk to manufacture a casual, unsuspecting atmosphere between them, neither of them can drum up enough thespian stamina to be anything but naturally terse, steeped in their own private, nuanced world. It’s all Lucius can do to keep his pulse in check as he wards off unpleasant thoughts with creature comforts like being cradled, and wordless prayers imploring higher powers to help fortify him with the strength he lacks and the hope he needs, like he always has when hardships closed in.

The deeper they descend, the wider the walls yawn. Shafts of sunlight saturated with clouds of mist cut through the gaps in the ceiling, which rises to cathedral heights. The steady, trickling rush of the river they had traced to the mountain range gushes through their ear canals like a deluge. They reach a space that opens up like a ballroom, a nexus among others in this system Martin understands as well as a rabbit does its warren. 

Its ambiance is spellbinding, and it would be a marvelous sanctuary to stop, rest, and even spend time to reflect if the specter of Sebastian weren’t looming somewhere unseen. From a wide crevice opening into the mountaintop, a river spills over the edge and empties curtains of spray into the cave system to a level below theirs, where water flows through the mountain's arteries visible over the ledge they now traverse. The abundance of water casts the dull earthy yellow into bluish hues. It glimmers like a crystal palace, the delicate, jagged formations glassy like ice from their damp sheen and catching the sparse skylight that dances in the rapids to throw it back with all the polish of jewelry. 

Lucius and Raven scarcely have time to catch their breaths before a glint of harsh light flashes beside the softer ones glowing from the calcified formations, and as prepared as they had been for this moment, Lucius discovers he isn’t ready at all. Martin drops the torch he carried with a reverberating _thunk_ and springs for the monk, but Raven understands the sequence of dual signals relayed to him prior to delving into the cave and reacts accordingly. The broad side of his axe intercepts the boy in midair and sends him flying into a pile of weathered rock. 

Forgetful of acting in his urgency to fight his real foe, Raven whirls around to seek his undying rival amid the twisted columns and spires. Lucius, on the other hand, keeps his mentality trained on the idea that he should not suspect a thing, and promptly seizes his partner by the shoulder to send him a rather convincing look of perplexed horror.

“What are you _doing_?” he cries emphatically.

Raven seems confused, but then remembers— a flicker of genuine regret transpires for failing to uphold the act and tries to cover for it by focusing on Martin’s action. “He tried to attack you!”

“What?” Lucius turns to the unmoving heap on the rocks and moves towards it, but Raven snatches his wrist. 

“No. Don’t go.” On the surface, he’s worried about the danger Martin might still present, but his reflex stemmed from the intense flash of concern for what might happen to his companion if he strays too far from him. “I don’t know what his ploy is. He may be a child, but I won’t stand by and let him hurt you again.”

“But why would he…” Lucius knows full well why, and he also knows Sebastian might have an inkling why he might suspect this, too. While he’s supposed to pretend he knows nothing of the lordling’s survival, this turn of events still warrants an air of suspicion on his part, and he is granted the excuse to survey the cavern for signs of his approach. Each second that he does not spot his form hammers another stake of cold fear into his heart, ironically enough.

“I don’t know. Maybe he’s not to be trusted,” Raven speculates. “It could be that he thought he could buy our trust only to swindle us when our guards were down. But he should never expect to take two trained mercenaries on all by himself.” Thoughts of his true objective stampede over his patience to maintain these pretenses. Unable to take it any longer, he pulls Lucius close to him and whirls around defiantly. “Some thieves operate together. So maybe, he’s in league with some _bandits_.”

Hollow, histrionic laughter bounces off the stony chamber, manufacturing the illusion that it resounds from all directions. Its suddenness and familiar quality jolts Lucius into squeezing onto the arm that encloses him in an instinctive bid for security. Raven glances about, maddened by the ambiguity, and then alerted by the click and clang of armor as soldiers file into position, effectively blocking all means of exit save for jumping off the ledge.

“ _Bandits?_ Still going on about that, are we? Don’t you think you’re being a little overdramatic?”

He stands on a pillar of gnarled flowstone amassed in incremental heaps like steps leading to a throne, the corner of his lip morphing from grin to grimace in subtle twitches as he radiates dark contempt from his lofty place. As grandiose as his entrance is, he never bothered to primp for the part; his hair is left tousled and undone, unfurling in tangled surges like the mane of a lion, his outfit stained and shredded in places, complexion cadaverous. He clings to the very tattered edges of posing in any presentable capacity, the fibers of his tolerance worn all but threadless. He’s ghastly, and to Lucius, otherworldly, like he’s risen from the grave his mind had buried him in. He had wanted to proceed forward and away, but in the end, he was ensnared when his back was turned. Raven sneers, barking out his own scant chuckle, amused in the most removed sense.

“Maybe I’m not being dramatic enough for the likes of you,” he replies with no shortage of mettle. “I think it would be more apt to say I’m looking at a barbarian.”

“Ha!” He slaps his thigh. “Clever! The chimp knows some bigger words!”

“And I have more for you. You’re a crooked scoundrel and a thief, lucky to be born sucking on a silver spoon. Whether squatting in a castle or a mountain, you’re still the same pigeon-hearted coward as ever, I see.”

“Oh, poetry!” He claps, buckling over and pretending to be amused instead of provoked, but the hatred still flares behind his mask. “I do so love poignant, cutting verse! But in order to be a thief, I would need to be stealing property. Why do you keep insisting that poor, sweet Lucius is nothing more than baggage to be stolen?”

“Because you’re twisting my words! Lucius knows more than anyone which of us treats him more like a human being than a trinket to keep or a prize to be won, and that’s why whatever your little ‘plan’ is will backfire.”

“And the light of St. Elimine will guide us to our righteous victory,” Lucius adds, steeled enough by Raven’s unwavering conviction that he dares to meet Sebastian’s gaze with stoked embers smoldering in his own. He pulls out his tome to embellish his words.

Sebastian goes berserk with laughter, clutching his forehead as he tilts his head back to bray. “Your light doesn’t scare me, and neither do the gods!” He rips himself out of his show of hysterics to direct his sneer at Lucius. “Besides, all I have to do is get close to you and you’ll shatter like glass. I have an intimate knowledge of just how easy it is to make you scream…”

Lucius’s lip quivers as his inner fire dies down.

“Bastard!” roars Raven. “Why don’t you stop fouling the air with your vulgar mouth and hop down here? Just test if I’ll even let you near him ever again!”

Sebastian keeps laughing, wiping at his face like there might be a tear. “So pitifully weak… Couldn’t even take a bit of foreplay! Why should I fear you, Lucie-wucie?”

Raven comes unbolted at his lewd audacity to insult and intimidate his partner in such a humiliating way, and how he delights in not only sprinkling heaps of salt into Lucius’s stinging emotional wounds but to make a semi-public spectacle of it skins his tolerance raw. And now that Lucius shed some more light on his harrowing years of sexual trauma on top of all the other tragedies and abuses he endured, Raven can see in clearer detail how profoundly this might hurt him. If it weren’t for wanting to shelter Lucius both in body and in spirit, he would have bounded over to Sebastian’s platform and scaled it no matter how ill-advised the maneuver might be, but instead, he offers his damaged friend a tight squeeze and watches his field of vision cloud with untenable rage. 

“This gets under your skin, too, I see!” marvels Sebastian with perverse joy scintillating in his crinkling eyes, hands on his thighs as though to emphasize how he’s talking to someone beneath him. “But you don’t need to fret. I’m not here to take him back. I intend to snuff him out here.”

“That’s not happening! Not while I’m around!” insists the mercenary, stature tall.

“Oh, but you’ll be first to taste the dust, rest assured,” he says with a twirl of his spear. “That way, I will spare you the horror of watching him die, and I’ll do as I please with him without your pesky interference.”

“You will do nothing of the sort!” hisses Raven, stumbling a step forward like a tethered beast ready to snap its rope.

“I’ll do it until I grow bored. I’ll do him so hard he’ll be inside-out when I’m done with him! I’ll do him to death; how’s that?!” he dogs through his teeth. Softer, more playful, he adds, “Or would you rather I put on a show for you after all, loverbird?”

Spit flies from Raven’s mouth. “I’ll cut you down!!”

As frightened as Lucius is under the stifling presence of the man who raped him and is now mocking him for it and threatening to do it again in newer and more violent ways, he also has someone he needs to protect. If he can just focus, that urge triumphs over all his other feelings; as Raymond’s retainer and still Raven’s, his primary mission in life has been to preserve his liege’s well-being at even the cost of himself. As strong as Raven has proven himself time and time again, it would only take one well-placed stab to bring him to his knees. He can’t afford to go numb and cower, or lapse into fitful throes when he needs to be here to support him just as much as he needs Raven’s. Didn’t he vow he was strong enough to face the danger in these mountains? Though he shudders in his arm, he whips around to cling tightly to his middle, free hand digging into his clothes in hopes he can snap him out of the wrath that possesses him.

“L-Lord Raymond, don’t… don’t let him goad you out of your senses,” he warns, choosing to look at him instead of their enemy. If Raven weren’t his other half, he might retreat in terror at the sheer intensity of the infernal savagery carved into his leer; he can _see_ Sebastian’s blood splashing in his eyes. “It’s… It’s all bluster…”

“He’s threatening you, and I won’t tolerate it!” growls Raven, though hearing that Lucius hasn’t been stricken dumb by all the abominable things he says puts him at some ease. He jerks his attention back to Sebastian. “Well? Did you come all this way just to blow hot air in our faces, or did you bring your spear for a reason that’s not swinging it around like some baton?”

With a smile purely fashioned of artifice, he spins it around at Raven’s prompting. “No. I have a bit of a confession to make. Try as I might, I can’t disentangle the two of you from my thoughts. It’s maddening… It’s an obsession… And you’ve pushed me over the edge!”

He leaps off his column to their level, his cape sweeping like wings that carry him to a remarkably graceful landing. Nothing about his composure conveys grace, however, with his disheveled appearance, fists tightly screwed to the shaft of his weapon and his shoulders rolled forward like he’s ready to pounce at minute provocation. All around them, his modest retinue prepares their weapons, antsy to start lunging with blades or hurling their magic. A wildness flashes in Sebastian’s eyes as he fixates on the mercenaries, tinged with desperation, breathing ragged and heavy.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done to me...?”

“Do you think I care?” retorts Raven. “You deserve worse for what you’ve done to _us_.”

“Oh, you’ll care. You think I’m fishing for your sympathy?” He swipes at the air with his spear. “No; I want your heads! You’ve shamed me, painted me a criminal in my own household, and plunged my very birthright into jeopardy! A-And now, I have… I have... My life is crumbling before me! I am scrambling for meaning in the devastation wrought by your meddling!”

“That’s what happens when you’re a disgusting excuse for a human being,” Raven says.

“Actions have consequences,” adds Lucius somberly.

“And I hate you MOST!” shrieks the noble, jabbing a finger in Lucius’s direction with his delirium hitching up an octave. “You made yourself so lovable, so _kind_ , so trustworthy and fooled me into believing you might give me a chance… There was a time you smiled at me! Don’t you _remember_ that?” 

“I did, but…”

“And it was so warm, so… so genuine!” he laments. “A panacea for... But you… agh!” He throws his arm up in exasperated resignation. “What’s the use? I already know what you’re going to say.” A hardened shell covers up the soft, exposed vulnerability of his stormy emotions poking through. “And now there’s no going back. A real devotee of St. Elimine would have been able to find forgiveness, even for the darkest crannies of one’s soul. They always preach it until they’re blue in the face, but it only ever amounts to hypocrisy. I should never have dreamed you would be any different.”

Lucius swallows the lump in his throat that formed when Sebastian thwarted him with effective vilification. He knows he should at least try to defend his actions, even when his damaged self-esteem suggests that Sebastian has a point, that he always had a weak heart and that this would just be another example of his failures as a vowtaker of forbearance and virtue. But verbs won’t connect to subjects, words swirl garbled in his mind, and Raven speaks in his stead, unperturbed by Sebastian’s polemics.

“If he forgave you that easily for everything you did, it would be the same as excusing the inexcusable.”

“No matter! You could never replace a real romantic prospect. You’re not even a woman. Not a real woman, and not a real man, either... In the end, you were just some pretty novelty fuck incapable of getting over yourself. I might have freed you on my own accord, eventually!”

“I’m tired of stalling! Just put a cork on the bullshit already and let me have what I wanted since the moment you hurt Lucius…” demands Raven, hoisting his axe over his shoulder. 

“I’m afraid it’s going to be the other way around! I can’t go on living without your blood on my hands! You denigrates must answer for the mess you made of House Khathelet! Of my family! My very _sanity_!” He makes a broad, sweeping gesture with his arm. “Move out, men! Leave them within an inch of their lives if you must! But try to keep them alive for me so I can finish them off as I desire!”

Their opponents throng them in numbers pushing double digits, and all at once, they advance. Lucius and Raven cast their awareness from a bold line leading to Sebastian to a perimeter that more readily encompasses the entirety of their narrow battlefield closing in around them. Lucius rotates out of Raven’s hold and against his back, summoning a beam of light magic to vaporize the archer who thought he could stick a quick arrow through his partner from his blind spot. Raven fends off the soldiers who charge at him with their lances and swords, some of them sporting the hard-bitten appearance of mercenaries like himself.

It becomes a precarious dance. One misstep in a battle like this one could spell trouble for both of them, and their movements are indurated from the experience of hundreds of skirmishes before. None are wasted when Raven takes two men out in one fell swing, or when Lucius blocks the brunt of an Elfire spell from searing into his partner with his whole body. Raven wants to cut through the nonsense and aim directly for Sebastian, but the necessity of keeping Lucius in proximity keeps him rooted. It’s a frustrating limitation.

“You really complement each other in battle, don’t you?” comments Sebastian, tone dripping with false, mocking sincerity. “It would be a shame if one of you fell! Who should I aim for?” he goads, stalking them in a slow circumference with his spear at the ready. “The easy target, or the easier target?”

“Whoever you hit—” Raven wards off the strike of a sword; “—make it quick!”

“You haven’t been hit even once,” he remarks. “I wonder how long that will last?”

Lucius almost gets his opportunity to cast Sebastian into painful light, but the sweep of a foot soldier’s lance aims much, much lower than anticipated, ramming straight into his bad ankle and sending him toppling over. With it, he cries out in surprise, almost dropping his tome altogether. Highly attuned to his surroundings as he is, Raven notices the slip in time to swerve and catch him with one arm before he collapses into a vulnerable state on the cave floor. This hasty maneuver leaves Raven exposed to enemy blows and fires; a sword slashes his torso, a rush of wind magic nearly bowls him over. He winces but endures well to them. At long last, Sebastian jumps into the fray and aims a fierce strike at Lucius, a devious grin stretching across his face, but Raven won’t let it happen: he pulls the monk in close to the shelter of his bulkier body and becomes his defense as the pointed silver pierces him.

“Lord Raymond!” shrieks Lucius, his very vocal cords breaking.

“I-It’s fine…” he reassures him, then yelps as the spear flees from his body in a burst of blood. Sebastian cackles with glee, then aims for another shot, but Raven twists around in time for it to glance his side and soften the blow. There’s no denying how much physical agony the series of events caused, but it’s not enough to do him in.

“How touching! He’s your weakness! The lengths you go for this aberra—!”

He can’t complete his revilement when radiance consumes him. Lucius clutches his Shine tome so hard it dents the pages on one side, his arm thrown up from when he conjured the spell. Like this, the pair look momentarily locked in the dip of a dance, though they tremble and ache and the only music they have is the echo of turmoil. Raven swings his axe at another soldier aiming to strike at his less guarded side, the angle of ambush predictable for the seasoned warrior. Over half of them have been decimated by this point, and their relative scarcity depletes their investment in this fight. Sebastian’s zeal, however, has been stoked angrily by the monk getting the best of him in that moment, and he drops his sleeve from his eyes with renewed, rankled passion.

“So, you really _do_ want to be first…”

“Give it your best shot, shitheel!” dares Raven with dangerous fire in his eyes.

“It’s been such a long time since I’ve been hit by light magic…” he replies, almost fondly, dazzled. The remaining forces Sebastian brought with him lose their edges to uncertainty about their leader’s intent, and their relative scarcity since the beginning depletes their confidence and willpower. As he staggers blinking the stars from his eyes, Raven seizes the moment to swipe at him with his axe from his position concealing Lucius, and the sensitive area in between his legs receives the brunt of the hit. The cave screams with his howls.

Raven watches him crumple with a satisfied smirk. “Oh, I’ve been wanting to do that all night. Not so eager to have your way with Lucius anymore, huh?”

All Sebastian can do is scream and holler, balling up on the floor as a dark red pool oozes from his pitiable form. 

“Lucius…!” he chokes. But Lucius won’t even look his way, can’t even look his way. He leans against Raven for the support he needs, clutching Shine close to his chest and twisting his body around the other way as though to avoid becoming violently ill. The disenfranchised noble curls into himself with a whimper as his vision darkens and swims. Raven could easily snuff him out like this, but as much as he has wanted to for a while now, he hesitates. It’s not out of mercy— far from it. Watching him writhe beneath him utterly emasculated yields a heady rush of cold-blooded retribution.

“What? I thought you’d be a little more into this.” He rams his boot into him right where it hurts, wringing an agonized yowl out of him. “I guess you can’t take what you dish out. It doesn’t feel very good, does it?”

Lucius clings to his partner desperately. “Stop this! You’re hurting him so much already!”

“That’s the point, Lucius!”

“It’s little more than savagery!”

”A fitting end for him, don’t you think?”

Nonetheless, Raven doesn’t inflict any more. He watches for a brief moment as the cave empties of lackeys, the mercenaries he hired quickest to disappear, his retainers wavering on whether it was worthwhile to defend their liege or better to preserve their lives. The chaos dies down, and he has Sebastian right where he wanted him.

Robbed of sense and words, Sebastian burbles and moans. Fat tears slide down his clenched face. At last, Lucius has gathered the wherewithal to gaze upon the gore before him, but he does so with marked anxiety and a ghostly complexion. He digs his fingers into Raven’s coat and wishes more strongly than ever that none of this had to happen at all, from the morning they took on his secret job to this twisted man’s dying moments. 

He remembers, then, more with his aching heart that hates suffering more than anything else, that he has the power to heal him but refuses to use it. However, circumstances dictate above morals that it is the wrong thing to do. Almost as though seizing onto his qualms with a psychic grasp, Sebastian coughs and forms his first intelligible sentences.

“Lucius, please… S-Save me…”

His plea punctures him deeply, and out of that psychological wound oozes sympathy and remorse. It wouldn’t matter what abhorrent acts he committed— Lucius would always be helpless against someone crying out for him in anguish. Unfortunately, he must not give in.

“I… am afraid you ask the wrong person,” he replies sorrowfully.

“Then just end it already!” he wails, eyes wide at Raven. “I have nothing left...! Take my head! Get it over with! You want your hard-won revenge, don’t you?”

Raven considers honoring his request, but holds back. “No. That would be too good for a scoundrel like you.” He kicks the spear he dropped and lets it slide across the ground far away from reach. “You should just be left to bleed out here until you die. I think this suits you better.”

“No!” he gurgles, then slackens on the cold stone. “I-It hurts so much…! I beg of you, don’t leave me this way!”

“Come on, Lucius. You’ve had enough of him.” Raven sheathes his axe behind his back and starts to pick his companion up, but Sebastian grabs for his heel in desperation.

“I don’t… want to be alone! Don’t leave me! It’s cold, and dark, and-and more by the second!”

Raven kicks him off, but Lucius unclaves himself from Raven and kneels to his side. “Lucius!” he admonishes, but the monk holds up a hand to silence him. “He doesn’t deserve this! Don’t give him even a second more of you!”

“Lord Raymond, be quiet!” he yells, breaking past his own tears.

“No, he’s right… I don’t deserve you!” he sobs, losing dignity, spiraling down his climacterical mood. “You’re too sweet for me, especially the man I’ve become… I was in love, once, but I met her sweetness with rancor… just as… just as I have, you! I’m loathsome, aren’t I? I didn’t want to kill my brother, but in my whirlwind of blind anger committed a crime of passion… and to you, a passionate crime…”

“You’re aware,” remarks Lucius, transcending his fears for the comfort he can offer another human being at a most dire and terrifying moment to take his hand. “It’s true that I should not absolve you of your wickedness so lightly, but… I also understand that deep pain must have shaped you.”

None of the lordling’s prior hatred pierces through the stunned mournfulness of his unfocused gaze. “Lucius… Your hand, so… warm...”

“Pain shapes us, but it doesn’t have to carve us into monsters. Your life may be ending here, but I believe that, soul willing, there is hope for you in the one that awaits you in death.”

He can barely scrape together the strength to squeeze onto the support lent to him. “I never wanted you to… not leave me, I.... did those things because of that…”

“There were other ways to seek my attentions, Lord Sebastian. What you did was wrong.”

“It hurts…” he whimpers, unable to think past the all-consuming pain. Lucius releases him and moves to rise, collecting his book from the ground as he does so. Raven stands by, more than a little irritated by how this situation unfolds (especially when they touched) but knowing better than to interrupt Lucius when he has entered saint mode. At the very least, he can try to encourage him to stop delaying so they can leave him to die already.

“I think this punishment suits your crimes. Just suffer like this a little longer and you’ll be dead soon enough. Let’s go, Lucius.”

With the light of his magic, he steals his life from him in one brilliant flash. Raven unshields his eyes and blinks at him, dumbfounded somewhat. Soberly, Lucius keeps his sight soldered to the lifeless heap before him.

“No one should suffer like I have.”

Raven doesn’t rail against his decision to disobey his wishes. The resolution bolded in his blue eyes reminds him that he has a right to take things into his own hands and settle transgressions directed against him on his own terms. The monk settles in place, shuts his eyes, and folds his hands together to pray that if he can’t forgive him, then perhaps his soul could be guided in the direction where it could be. “He really is in your hands, now, and I was unable to guide him to your light in the way that I wanted,” he murmurs with soft articulation.

The very idea that Lucius thought it was his responsibility to fix Sebastian when it had nothing to do with him baffles and angers him. Beyond that, however, he enters a sort of trance watching Lucius, steeping into a bout of reflection. It’s his inner strength that transfixes him, an unfathomable force tested by all the wickedness of the world. Yet, he emerges strong enough to shrug off the need to settle scores. Instead of reveling in his victory, he spares time and energy seeing tortured souls off like an angel shepherding the dead to their final pastures. Raven’s convinced that if Sebastian’s going anywhere after this, it’s bound to be hell. If he said that, though, he can already predict how upset Lucius would be in the face of his remark. Why should Lucius care so much? And for the filthiest dross of them all?

_No one should suffer like I have._

_Pain shapes us, but it doesn’t have to carve us into monsters._

_Rather than focusing on who did the damage, I would rather we focus on the damage itself._

He always apologizes for how weak his heart is, but in moments like these, Raven can’t help but silently laugh off those claims. Lucius just can’t see that his heart is made of diamond, not glass, and more precious than one. Especially to him. Sebastian probably only appreciated it in his final act, so covetous of his ethereal beauty that he discounted what truly shines about this man.

“Are you done here?” he asks, betraying none of his impatience while he’s mellowed out from admiring his lifelong partner. “We really ought to treat our wounds.”

Raven’s voice breaks him from his waning concentration. He gives him his attention, and more still when he realizes he’s bleeding out from the spear wounds. “Oh!” he cries in astonishment. “Yes; come he— ohh!”

In his hurry to stand and attend to him, Lucius forgets how much his tortured ankle rebels more than ever and teeters over. Raven is quick on the uptake, though, and dives for him before he can smack the unforgiving cave floor. Unfortunately, it was a bit of a stretch, so it results in Raven losing his balance, too, and he rolls in midair, crashing in a clumsy heap on his back, Lucius atop him.

“Ugh…”

Lucius laughs, both at the comedy of their error and as a means to alleviate the pain shooting up his leg. Now that the high-speed rush of adrenaline is over, he sinks into place, glad for its end, the mountainous stress he had been repressing from that encounter collapsing in on him. His laughter shapeshifts into sobs.

“That was… s-so horrible…”

He can only imagine how hard it must have been for Lucius. Not only was he burdened with harsh reminders of his trauma, but the ugliness of fighting and taking lives. Then again, that’s exactly the type of life he’s dragged him into by fighting as soldiers for hire, isn’t it? Faint regrets settle in as he readjusts his arms around his delicate frame to offer him a more substantial, fulfilling embrace, wanting to give him so much more than just that.

“It’s over, now. We made it through,” he reminds him. “You… I… love you.”

His sobs subside into bare hiccups as the impact of his gentle words affects him. “And I, you…” he whispers. 

Raven is treated to a kick in the side. It jolts him out of his euphoria and causes him to sit up abruptly, ready to fight. He softens just a tad when he sees Martin standing there.

“That’s for hitting me so hard earlier,” he informs with a sulk.

Caught unaware and in a sensitive position, Raven blushes with scalding fury. “That was part of your plan! You have all your limbs, right? I hit you as nicely as possible.”

As Lucius fishes for his staff while perched on his partner’s lap, Martin continues with hopeful but concerned energy. “Anyway, I’m not the one who needs to be worried about. Healing staves are great, but stupidly enough, they don’t do any good for the one who holds them, right?”

“In most cases, yes,” Lucius replies, patching up the worst of Raven first, who begins to catch onto the significance of where this conversation heads when his sights fall to Lucius’s foot, then his face. As he feared, it’s drawn in faint discomfort on top of the tearstained tragedy, like he does when trying to bite back serious pain. It’s hard to feel at ease with his closing wounds when he’s aware of this recurrent problem.

“You were hit pretty hard back when I caught you, huh?” he asks, setting his palm on his back. 

Lucius grimaces. “A little… The pain is more noticable now that the chaos has died.”

His heart sinks as he fights trenchant uneasiness. “I’m not letting you walk on this at all. You hear me?”

He relents with a slow nod, biting his lip against the grim comprehension of his current ambulatory condition. “Understood…”

Martin taps his finger against his crossed arms as he rolls considerations around in his brain. “I’m heading back to the castle as it is. I need to check up on my friend to see what’s happened to him. His name is Wrhyce, and he’s pretty handy with medical stuff. If I can convince him, maybe he’ll come with me to help you.”

“It seems like a lot of trouble for someone ailing and elderly…” muses Lucius.

“...Maybe…” he accepts, mulling about it with a more complete picture for reference. “Well, at any rate, I’m going back. If you want a place to rest, there’s actually some nice spots if you keep going west through those tunnels,” he informs, pointing in the direction he means. “I’ll ask about what to do and bring back some supplies to help your foot if I have to do it alone.”

“I might be able to do it myself,” assures Lucius with a placid smile raised for Martin’s consideration. “Thank you for all you have done. If we never meet again, may all of your troubles be uplifted and your future made bright.”

The kid falters for a moment, the line of his mouth curving and bending as he tries in vain to suppress his show of emotion, until deciding he can just swivel around and make his departure. “And you’d better be more careful,” he replies. “Get better, okay? And you take care of him!”

“Don’t worry,” answers Raven, snagging eye contact with Lucius as he finishes up with his staff. “I always will, whether he wants me to or not.”

Satisfied, Martin scurries off and through a passage untraveled to the mercenaries, leaving them alone with the remnants of their battle. Now that his vitality has been restored some, Raven scoops Lucius up and rises to the soles of his feet in careful, unhurried movements. 

“Let’s get a move on, before it starts to reek.”

“Yes…” he agrees, warding off queasiness at the concept of stinking corpses. He can finally close his eyes, if only to rest his weary mind. Raven ferries him onward.


	13. A New Approach

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one gets a bit "steamy", so I guess that's all I really have to warn about save for references to all that jazz you've been reading about since chapter 1. Do I really have to warn you guys anymore...? I mean, if you've read this far, you're probably well-prepared for it by now.
> 
> Oh, and it's all consensual this time! There really is a light at the end of this tunnel!

He carries two bodies laden with exhaustion, their hearts just as heavy when they’re chained to the emotional toil of recent events. It’s a tremendous weight to bear, but each shoulders their own.

Though he never uttered a word of it since, Sebastian’s crude lashes of his tongue still burn somewhere inside of Lucius like the sting of a real whip, throbbing in time with his dangling, swollen ankle. Words may just be words, but they carry manifest meaning, too: disturbing ones that rubbed dark splotches into his life. He can _feel_ what inside-out means just by thinking of it, can recall the ringing in his skull as he plants his first bruises, can hear the echoing voice those horrid words rode on drunken with sick pleasure and muffled against his neck. To cope, he tries to hold his head above it all, like treading deep water with unpredictable, sudden dips in the substrate he tiptoes on. It’s easier to keep afloat when he concentrates on providing some magical light to guide Raven through the darker passages, and the simple understanding that he is not isolated with his thoughts lends him buoyancy.

While never victimized in the same capacity as Lucius, the chilling imagination of it still manages to permeate Raven and add sinister touches to his troubled mind. Whenever he tries to envision each position Lucius had been forced into, what kinds might have resulted if he failed to rescue or protect him, a barrier of sorts bounces him backwards, too horrified to permit more than a peek. If he can’t stand a second more of a mere idea, how gruesome must the pain have been for his partner, unable to resist no matter how he struggled against its reality? 

Even now, with Sebastian’s demise, nothing about Lucius’s cloudy emotional state seemed to clear. If anything, the woe etched plainly on the stark crease of his brow conveys worse grief. Ending his life had done nothing to vanquish what torments the monk. It loaded his overtaxed heart with the burden of snuffing another life out.

“Are you okay?” he murmurs when his concern overflows. Some of his tension lines fade and he swears Lucius emits a gentle light from his face as he looks up at him, unaided by the magic contained in books.

“I am managing,” he replies. 

“...Good to hear,” Raven settles with.

In reality, he doesn’t know how to convert his sentiments to language. He can only hope that checking in with his current status will at least communicate that he’s available for support. That is the backbone of his more complex feelings, after all. If he didn’t care deeply for this damaged man, he wouldn’t be feeling any of it.

His focus gravitates, retrained on all the other ways he must care for his boyfriend, body and soul, for a long time to come. Lucius needs him more than ever. While it’s nice to be needed, serious responsibilities come packaged with it. The logistics of living situations and acquiring provisions vexes him hard enough, but another type of insecurity badgers him. 

When the time comes again to embrace as lovers, how will he scale the impressive fortress Lucius has built around himself? 

In what way should he touch him, speak to him, look at him? 

How is he supposed to go about lovemaking to begin with? 

Nobody taught him. The most education he had was slurred campfire anecdotes regaling fellow soldiers with raunchy exploits, none of which he was ever interested in, none detailed enough to be helpful, and none involving the pursuit of male paramours.

Everything leading up to the act itself has never been difficult. It always ignited on raw emotions alone, fueled by the torch he has long carried for his love and improvised by the whims his body carried out naturally. He’s always had ideas, or rather, entertained fantasies he never dared confess to Lucius, but laughably, he’s more a virgin than the monk he’s trying to disentangle from the throes of sexual trauma. What makes him think he’s equipped to confront such a momentous task?

Just as Raven’s arms start to protest, Lucius shakes him from his burdensome musings. “Is that... steam?”

Raven slows, sparing a moment to catch up with his surroundings. “Ah, yeah. Now that you mention it, it’s gotten a lot less cool in here.”

“Why don’t we investigate?” Hopefulness tinges him. “I have a feeling this may be what Martin was referring to.”

“A place to stop and rest?”

“I hope so. You’re tiring; I can tell.”

Finding no room for argument, Raven heads down the fork in the tunnels where the vapor drifts from. Darkness progressively cedes to faint light coming from somewhere ahead. The narrow passage widens until it gives way to a open area where a pool is nestled, flanked by stalagmites and boulders standing tall and sturdy like mismatched pillars. Holes from the surface deliver the weary sun in modest beams. The steam they followed skims the surface of the water in airy, beckoning curls. Lucius rejoices softly, a smile lifting his features.

“I knew it! A hot spring! Wow... It looks so peaceful.”

Raven wastes no time shuffling over to a ledge sliced in the wall like a natural alcove to lower Lucius onto it, mindful of his wrecked leg. He rolls his shoulders with a crick and stretches his arms up and over behind his back, sighing at the relief. “I’m looking forward to resting here for a while.”

“And we can soak in the spring for a bit.” He chuckles. “I shudder to think of how long it’s been since you’ve washed up.”

“What, you mean to say you can tell?” he retorts with a smirk and a raised eyebrow. To that, Lucius flashes a knowing smile that deteriorates into a wince as he resumes the painful business of liberating his foot.

“I’ve had greater concerns plaguing me than your smell.” He glances at a splatter of blood adorned on his sleeve and wilts, but maintains some residual levity in his tone. “Besides, I can’t be much better...”

He had been granted the chance to cleanse before the banquet he had been coerced into attending while imprisoned as Sebastian’s guest, but much has happened since then. Raven, on the other end of the scale, dragged himself through messier circumstances. “No, you’re a bed of roses compared to my stench. Try marinating in your own sweat and bloodshed for a while in a dank prison cell.”

His remark twists bitterness into Lucius’s expression and makes Raven regret his flippancy. He shifts in place and watches him struggle for only a few seconds before deciding to snag the reins himself. “Lucius, hold on.”

He lets go and throws his hands up in a show of resigned frustration. “It really hurts…”

“I can imagine why. You’re probably swelling up. If I can’t get this off, I might have to cut it out.”

“My new boots… So soon?” he bemoans with little feeling behind his complaint.

With combined effort, Raven manages to slide it off while Lucius holds his leg steady for him, not once needing to take a blade to it. They both squeeze a sour, vaguely horrified face when the removal of his sock reveals how many vivid colors it had ruptured.

“Ohh, no wonder it hurts so much,” Lucius laments, sincere in his forlornness this time, and sends a rueful look to Raven. “I won’t be able to use this for a while. My foot just keeps getting worse and worse. This will inconvenience us severely...”

“I won’t deny it. But there’s not much we can do.”

The monk droops. It occurs to him more than before that he will not be able to attend Raven on his jobs— not for a good while. Where would that leave him? Not by his side, but left behind, miserably and anxiously awaiting his safe returns. It twists him up inside to a queasy extent. “I’m sorry… I’m not much better than baggage like this.”

His voice drips with plaintive remorse, enough to dampen Raven’s spirit. He takes a seat next to him and hunches over to mull in unpleasant thoughts, the kinds that haunt him every so often even without their recent tribulations. After a gravid pause, he raises a careful question. 

“Is this lifestyle really good for you? Traveling with me as mercenaries...” 

Lucius’s heart plunges from its queasy, teetering ledge. He has asked this before under similar but less dire circumstances. Raven knows how much anxiety it churns in him. It isn’t like his intent is to cause him to grow frantic, however, and Lucius is aware of at least that much. Though his cadence quivers like a leaf tickled by the scarcest breeze, he tries not to let his worries get the best of him.

“As I have said many times: it isn’t the most stable or comfortable way of life, but I’m fine with austerities. I need very little to get by,” he asserts. “And I have lived a harsher life than this.”

“I’m aware, but…” He rests his forehead onto his clasped knuckles, frowning deeply as he deliberates how to express his feelings. “You’re always… getting hurt. I feel like it’s my doing.”

“As are you, my lord! And pardon my insolence, but you get hurt far more often than I do!”

“That’s beside the point!” he flares, but calms down shortly after. “I… I think what I mean to say is… I would rather not see you get hurt.”

It’s not only the meaning of his admittance, but the poignance of how his true feelings surface up raw and unguarded that softens Lucius to him. He places a gentle hand on his shoulder and seeks Raven’s attention, though he’s spurned by the intense focus he drills into the cave floor. “It pains me when you get hurt, too.”

“But this…! To this extent, I...” His knuckles flatten to cover his eyes. “...Have you _any_ idea how painful it was to see the bruises on your cheek? And to hear you cry, knowing where your agony comes from? To think I might have _lost_ you to some dreadful place… I…" He gulps at the tightness in his throat. "I was afraid my heart might split in two.”

He squeezes his shoulder. “Lord Raymond…” 

“And nothing could heal it if that happened. You would be gone, and I would be all alone… Gods, what would I even _do_?”

Money never interested him as much as most mercenaries, and the mad, incessant drive to punish Ostia had been extinguished a while ago. Living off his sword has provided him a way to keep chasing strength while allowing the freedom to go wherever he chooses. It’s not merely the thrill of the fight nor of gazing out across unfamiliar landscapes for the first time, but something else that propels him though life. Strength, while nice to have, is not a goal in and of itself, but a means to a goal. It might seem pathetic, but he’s all he has left. If that something else were to be no more...

The hand on his shoulder travels the expanse of his arm to rest over his, cool and welcome against the growing heat of his face. While he embraces the comforting gesture, it also cuts more anguish into him at the concept of this gentle soul, this soft light reaching out to aid him, consumed by eternal darkness, never to be seen or felt again. 

“You’re crying…”

Oh. He is? Moderately abashed, he rips his hands away from his face and rakes his forearm against whatever waterworks he had produced with a pronounced sniffle. 

“And what of it?!”

“No, no… it’s all right to cry. Shed your tears, my lord; the only one who bears witness to them is me, and St. Elimine knows how many of mine you’ve seen!”

“Of course it’s all right!” He all but attacks Lucius with a hug and doesn’t let go. “I’m upset! With me around, you’re constantly in danger! I knew it was a bad idea. I don’t know why I ever let you accompany me.”

Startled by his abruptness, Lucius takes a moment to catch his breath, the sinking, twisting feeling returning with a vengeance. “Don’t say such things!” he cries. “You let me come because I asked to! You think I didn’t know what I was getting myself into?”

Raven squeezes onto him and wrings muted, breathy sobs into his shoulder. From within the cramped cell of his arms, Lucius returns his hold as best as he can with shortened reach.

“And I am not ‘constantly in danger’,” he continues. “Not only can I take care of myself, but do you not realize? I have _you_.” He kisses the side of his head. “Wouldn’t you agree we do a better job at protecting each other when we’re together?”

He goes quiet, not even wracked by heaving breaths as he considers Lucius’s soothing words. He weighs them against his memories, of all the times he proved to be his strength rather than his weakness.

“...You’re right… I don’t know what I was thinking. That I wanted to keep you away from the fighting entirely, perhaps. You never liked the battlefields.”

“Most of our jobs don’t involve much fighting, if at all. And we never take on any dishonest ones. Besides, if I were to sit somewhere quietly and wait on you, that doesn’t guarantee my safety.”

The chilling veracity of his statement bears upon him like a glacier, more than before in all of Lucius’s current vulnerability. Adding to the load, he left him behind at the inn to be preyed on by a noble’s nefarious schemes, didn’t he? How can he argue against Lucius with that haunting his mind? The monk continues, a touch more affected by the worries he had been bottling up for Raven’s sake.

“I simply… do not want to be left behind…” he finishes, voice tapering into a squeak.

He grabs his cheeks in each palm and lifts his chin, locking their eyes. “No, stop that,” he demands. “It’s as you say. We’ll overcome this, and I mean _we_. I will take care of you, you hear? So don’t sulk, and don’t think I’m going to leave you anywhere all alone for too long. Not after everything that’s happened.”

He nods slowly from within the cradle of hands. His gaze is so helpless and wanting that Raven stoops in to mingle their lips. When he’s finished, he’s satisfied noting the subtle, warm transformation those sad blues take from that show of affection alone. Increasingly unable to maintain a steady gaze any longer, he adds, “Without you, I… Even if you could never walk again… Even if you never recovered from your fits or your trauma, I would always keep you. You’re… You’re everything to me, Lucius. My world would go dark if you weren’t there to light my path.”

Brightness plays in his eyes as Lucius covers one of his hands with his, the other bundled close to his heart. “It gladdens me to hear that… Deep down, I trust in your words, my lord… even when my insecurities whisper lies to me.”

“What did I say? Your companionship alone is invaluable to me. So what if you have to depend on me a little more?” He kisses him one more time before taking his hands back to stand up. “I don’t babble mushy words without meaning it. So let’s get you looked at and take a nice, long bath together.” He smiles, sniffing the vestiges of tears away. “What do you say?”

A new peacefulness settles on his face, masking all strain that threatens to break for the surface. “That sounds wonderful.” 

They work on doing what they can for his leg as they partake in momentary respite, perched on the ledge together. Lucius rests his foot atop Raven’s leg for elevation while he busies himself mixing the analgesic herbs he’d acquired for his foot’s earliest pains together into a paste. Raven tears off strips of cloth in lieu of bandages from his own coat to compress it. His naggy lover had protested shredding new clothes at first, but he argued that it will eventually tatter anyway, and he’d rather it serve a purpose at least. It was a quarrel Raven won. 

Once preparations have been made, Raven transports Lucius to the edge of the spring where he can easily disrobe and slide in at his leisure. Eager to soothe his aching muscles, Raven scarcely delays unbuckling and shrugging his garments off himself. Lucius elects not to be too attentive to this process, but at an interval when his sights alight on his half-naked form, their eyes rendezvous, and though they are quite intimate with each other as it is, the shy redolence of Lucius’s cheeks stirs similar feelings inside of Raven, and then he remembers how just last night he professed to wanting to make love with him.

How could he forget something so heartwarming and erotic as that? It’s not his fault!

Nevertheless, it makes shedding his trousers in front of his partner a little more embarrassing. He turns away a bit more as he does so.

Noticing the infection of inhibitions spread, Lucius decides he might as well join him in undressing to diffuse the saturated tension. Besides, he doesn’t want to be caught admiring him again, especially not his well-sculpted backside! He elevates his trail of blond into a messy bun, unravels his cape and unties his sash, and discards each piece of his habit in a neat pile as far away from the waters as possible, though he stalls when it comes to baring his smallclothes. 

He’s always been prudish, even around the same gender, Raven included. Even in situations where it was commonplace for men to be undressing so casually around one another, Lucius would avoid them for fear he would draw the inevitable attention. Underneath his manner of dress it would slowly become apparent that he, too, was a man, but it never helps that even the shape of his frame is curvier than the average male, how his shoulders aren’t broad in the slightest, his hip bones spaced apart enough to bear children if he possessed the means to begin with. That ambiguity in and of itself causes problems. From behind, he’s indistinguishable.

Barring those who claimed his body against his permission, Raven has seen most of him, and most often. There should be no reason for restraint, but he can’t choke his needless discretions. That said, even when he does shed clothes, he’s noticed Raven’s self-conscious inability to watch him do it before. By now he has come to realize that it has always had something to do with infatuation if not respect, even when he was a young lord with an unspoken childish crush.

No matter his reservations, there should be nothing to be ashamed of before the man he has devoted himself to. This is hardly the first time. Enheartened by reminding himself of how deep their bond runs, he finishes exposing himself. He slips into the spring carefully, suppressing a yelp when the temperature bites him, but eases into the heat of its liquid embrace, grateful for it. By now, Raven is already wading in it, waist-deep as he takes notice of Lucius’s entry.

“Be careful,” he urges, prodded into coming closer by his concerns. “You could hurt yourself if you move too suddenly. I was going to help, you know.”

“Ah, that’s fine; I can manage this little bit of trouble,” he dismisses with a breath of sheepish laughter, embarrassed by the thought of Raven manhandling him in this state. He wouldn’t mind so much as he wasn’t sure if he would burst or not. Against his wishes, however, the redheaded mercenary slips an arm around his back, the other beneath the crook of his legs, and drags him into the waters with him anyway. He cries out in surprise. 

“Lord Raymond!” he admonishes with no real severity and a laugh decorating his name. “Do you ever listen?”

“I could ask you the same thing.” There’s a smile playing on Raven’s words, too, and he feigns like he’ll pull him under but never submerges his boyfriend’s head. Lucius burbles another unintelligible choke that sounds almost like a quack, and he kicks at the water with his functional foot and shoves a hand in Raven’s face. It’s enough to make the dour mercenary laugh.

“Calm down! I’m not going to dunk you.” His hands stays pushed in his face, trembling. “Was that supposed to be a punch? You’re really offended that I’d suggest that, aren’t you?”

Instead of removing it in a normal gesture, Lucius claws his fingers limply down his face. A strangled whimper squeezes from his throat.

“Ray…! I’m...”

In spite of the wonderful warmth surrounding him, Raven’s heart gets treated to an ice bath when he regains proper faculty of vision and sees Lucius’s eyes glazed over and rolled up, expression contorted in fear.

“Oh, damn it!” Instinctively, he draws the fading monk close and makes desperate attempts to pacify him with strokes, his embrace, and his words. “Stay with me, alright, Lucius?”

“H…”

“You’ve nothing to be afraid of!”

Lucius’s pulse batters his ribcage like a wild beast, and then, his breathing labors. He can’t formulate word when he’s spiraled this far into his own subconscious. The futility of preventing his attack settles over Raven like frost. “No!” he curses, punishing himself inwardly. “Shit; what _happened_?”

Oh, but overreacting wouldn’t help a damn thing. Guilt leeches in as Lucius twitches in his arms, softly at first but more vigorously, enduring his spasms in waves as he gags on dry, fearful sobs with a tightened throat. There’s nothing more agonizing than witnessing his anguished, uncontrollable display, especially when there’s nothing he can do to intervene. Moreover, he feels responsible for triggering it. Was he too invasive of his personal space? From his standpoint, the attack seemed so abrupt when he’d been reveling in fondness, so happy just to have Lucius by his side and away from danger again that it inspired frisky whims. He’d been laughing about it, too, so why…?

He has to wrangle him in his arms for the entire duration of his fit, because he would never tolerate letting him writhe on the hard cave floor naked like he is and prone to further injury. All he can do is hold him there and murmur the occasional encouragement while he rides it out. After a grueling several minutes, his tremors and wails subside, and Raven hazards to check on him once again.

“Are you here yet?” he asks, adjusting his bangs for him.

After a short pause, Lucius manages a hoarse reply. “I… Y-Yes…”

He slides his hand into Lucius’s weak grip. “Don’t fear. These happen, I know. It’s over now.”

“Did I…?”

“Yes.” He re-adjusts himself on the smooth, sloping rock he leans against into more of a recline, pulling Lucius atop him and guiding his head against his chest. “You had one of your fits again. I don’t know the cause, but I... think I made a tremendous mistake.”

Lucius fumbles for his sense of time and space and traces the constellation of events connecting with distant memories that might have led to this. While the heartbeat thrumming in his ear is placating, his lip still quivers against the emotional onslaught and the enervated prison he calls a body, so wasted and limp against his lover. There, he succumbs to tears, folding his arms around Raven’s sides as Raven does so in turn.

“You need to rest,” Raven pleads, some of his own vulnerability peeking through as he squeezes his soulmate close like he wants to shelter him from himself. “You’ve been through too much. I can’t remind you enough times: I’m here for you. _Depend_ on me, free of obligation. You’re no burden to me. You’re worth so much more than that, remember?”

“Lord Raymond, I…”

“If the next thing is ‘sorry’, I will eat your hair.”

“Uh?” Finally, Lucius laughs, but it’s just a single puff of air, and what follows is prolonging of his soft sobs. “I-I just wanted… to share in our rejoicing, b-but…”

“Shhh…” He pats him a few times. “Your voice is breaking. This isn’t the worst interruption to our lives, you know. I’m hardly enduring as much as you are. So shut up and recuperate. That’s what we were doing to begin with, weren’t we?”

“Ahh… Thank you,” he whispers, letting his full weight bear down upon him at last.

Like this they remain, embedded in silence as Lucius tames his unruly mind with closed eyes. Raven listens contently as his breaths even out, running his hand in idle sways over his back. If telepathy does exist, he wishes he could use it to transcend the frustrating gap between his mind and Lucius’s. He can only want to understand what it feels like to be rendered so helpless against his own circumstances that he undergoes disturbing trances, as though it’s the only way he knows how to cope with innumerable psychic wounds. 

A sickness of the soul, he calls it. It isn’t like Raven can’t relate to the anguish of loss or death and the scars that form of them: both have lost their family, both have played their parts in the theater of war and witnessed the destitution wrought of it. The longer he reflects, the more pity for his partner renews. Lucius didn’t lose one family, but _two_ upon the destruction of House Cornwell. He lost his first at such a susceptible age. To twist the knife deeper, he had to watch the raw inhumanity of murder with innocent eyes. How terrified and alone must he have felt during the ordeals at the orphanage, robbed of familial warmth, where the only ‘affection’ he must have been given was all wrong, imposed as punishment or self-gratification? It’s a wonder he can smile so much and open his heart so selflessly to others.

“The water… feels nice,” murmurs Lucius dreamily.

His heart stops aching, bathed in the monk’s warmth. Even hearing Lucius bask in so simple a pleasure gratifies him incomparably. _This_ is how it _should_ be.

“Mm…” he agrees, cinching him even closer to his body without much force.

For Lucius, being able to rest somewhere so cozy and safe chases much of the disorienting discomfort that follows his episode away. The heat soothes him into drowsy torpor, the thrum of Raven’s chest ferrying him there, too. Shame evaporates into thin air along with guilt, and as confused as he still feels, he is able to let go of the worries associated with it. If he weren’t so sensationally tranquilized, the realization that they’re bound together so nakedly might affect him more, but instead, he finds solace here. He really does start to drift into a superior state of unconsciousness.

Auspicious as that may be, Raven remains conscious. As he adores his sedated partner, his warm thoughts start to steam up. A mere moan that slips out mid-slumber awakens primal impulses lurking beneath the undying glow of his love.

_If… If you would like to know my feelings on our bedroom activities, I… would like to know how it feels… to be loved by you._

His confession resounds— as it has more often than he would ever admit— the image of his burning cheeks seared into his memory for what he predicts will be the rest of time. Because of that pesky (fond) recollection, he becomes far too aware of their current bodily configuration. His abdomen rests snugly between his legs, rising and falling as he breathes; his arms wrap loosely around his waist in reciprocal entwining; his smooth, creamy back dewed and draped attractively over him with no hair to curtain it; worse yet, the sublime, heart-shaped culmination of his rear end scarcely visible beneath the waters and framed by his own thighs.

It’s all so distracting, and painfully so. He can easily fall into imagining them locked in the throes of passion. He does. It’s bad.

It wouldn’t _be_ so bad if he had an outlet, but Lucius’s sensitive state dredges up disgrace to couple with his fruitless desire. The last thing he needs is someone getting aroused over him, even if he claims he _does_ want to work on whetting his appetite for him. And immediately after one of his attacks! All he wants is for him to feel loved and secure, not terrorized and ashamed, and it’s likely that he would end up achieving the latter result though he aims for the former.

But… he’s so attractive. And if the contented sigh he just made could be wrung from a sensual touch sparked between them, that would send him starward. No aphrodisiac could possibly beat the effect Lucius’s moans have on him. The center of his pulse throbs lower, lower, and he finds that his bare stomach feels quite nice (if not a bit stifling) against his...

erection.

 _Please don’t wake up, Lucius…_ he prays, worrying his lip.

Damn it! Lucius sleeping on him is both a curse and a blessing: he can’t pull away without stirring him from slumber, but he’s blissfully oblivious to his problem. That doesn’t make it go away, however, and Raven would be doomed to try when they’re yoked together this way. Not that it isn’t _heavenly_ in its own right, but it’s rather _hellish_ , too!

Quite literally, he is wedged between a rock and a hard place.

He itches to move— and if not to adjust the uncomfortable position, then to find purchase for his blooming ache. However, the caveat to earning even the briefest stroke of relief would be the risk of alerting Lucius. Sweat sticks to his crumpled forehead as he considers his options and tries not to fall into the trap of salacious fantasies.

That’s it! Sebastian’s snide, punchable face makes for perfect anti-fap material. ....It also drives him to anger, though. All he has to do is congratulate himself for slamming the blade of his axe into his groin to defuse his sudden ire, not to mention the cringeworthy concept of penis gore should make him cringe and his passion wither. 

Maddeningly, it remains in bloom.

It must be due to the sensation of his sensitive skin tucked against the tantalizing dip of his navel, rhythmic in its steady rise and fall. He would deny it, but the forbidden nature of his want contributes to his strain. In the end, he helplessly shifts his hips, eliciting a breathy noise from his companion, which does not help him contain himself in the slightest. He’s verging on anger all over again for _different_ reasons. Lucius doesn’t even realize how badly he’s sabotaging him!

He can’t do this anymore.

“Lucius…” he whispers, shaking him gently. He’s resolved himself to be honest and conduct himself courteously about his conflict. At least a dozen minutes have passed, and he wouldn’t let him sleep in a hot spring for too long, anyway. The monk stirs, lifting his head to blink blearily up at Raven.

“Mmm?”

He must not realize it yet. Why does he look so endearingly erotic with his eyelids heavy and hair falling from his tousled hairdo? Shattering the harmony of his sleepy innocence would be a shame, but he must. He caresses the side of his face with a broad palm, thumbing his cheek afterward.

“I… think you should get me off,” he finds himself saying instead of, _I think you should get off me._. Hastily, he covers his slip-up with a choking, “No, I mean— Agh, definitely not that!”

His face morphs into slight confusion, but changes back to lazy contentedness shortly after. “You’re blushing…” hums Lucius with a faint, growing smile, and then he breaks it with a yawn. He never detected the double meaning, so Raven got worked up for nothing.

“B-Besides, you shouldn’t sleep here for too long,” he adds to redirect attention from his blunder in case he does figure out the meaning behind the gaffe and what a terrible thing it would be to say to him. He grabs him by his slight shoulders and uses only the barest force to push him off, trying to indicate that he won’t do it himself but Lucius definitely should.

It then dawns on the acolyte that the source of his discomfort rests beneath him. “Oh!” He jolts to his knees but slips from the sudden movement, toppling backwards into the pool with a cry. Raven can’t react in time to catch him before he falls and inadvertently hits his ankle on something. He bobs up from under the surface with a tremendous splash, wiping his eyes before sending them owlishly at Raven. 

“S-Sorry!” the mercenary stutters, hands frozen stretched out from when he failed to snag him. Thankfully, he crashed without contorting his ankle or banging it against any stone. “I didn’t— I was going to…!”

He’d been holding out fearfully that Lucius might be shocked, repelled, and affrighted, but in spite of his expectations, he scoots closer with the intent to quell his panic. “Listen: you’re fine, milord! You have done no damage,” he assures. Conversely, he retreats back into a silly smile, reaching behind his neck to undo his moppy tresses. “I understand why you would be so apologetic, but…”

Raven untenses, continuing to study Lucius. “You’re not afraid?”

“Of course not.”

He detects no pretension in his declaration whatsoever, not in those clear, ingenuous eyes of his that look him straight on or the unwavering quality of his voice. Still, he sighs and submits his sights to the ripples between them, lost. “How should I know? One moment you’re shaking, and the next you’re undaunted. And first, I don’t even expect my actions to cause you such a disturbance, but when the connection to your trauma is more obvious, it… doesn’t affect you?”

Lucius considers his predicament, then nods carefully. “I understand your bewilderment.” He places his palms against his own chest, no gaps in his fingers as he tries to parse his thoughts on the matter of his contradictory behavior. “Truly, my reactions are senseless. And perhaps it all lies in context. If I had to explain myself under these particular circumstances... “ The line of his lips grows tight during his brief pause, trouble creasing the corners of his otherwise placid face. “I don’t think my fit had anything to do with, well… erm, sexual troubles. When my heart began to race, it was stoked because of your antics.”

“Ugh… Sorry.” His head hangs even more.

“Oh, but ordinarily, that would be fine… I’m just... as you put it to Martin, in a bad place right now. If I focus on my feelings prior to the moment I knew my fit had already claimed me, I think another type of memory must have been unearthed. I…” Whatever serenity graced his demeanor before dissipates to near nonexistence, and the flatness of his hands crumple into fists. “I remembered an episode of bullying. You see, um…”

He has Raven’s full attention now, intent set to blaze his tormentors into oblivion. “Yes?”

His lip quivers. “I remembered almost drowning…”

Raven trades the anger he can’t exact for readiness to comfort him instead. “Lucius…”

He’s already heard of countless ways those cretins broke Lucius down in his childhood. A vast majority of their bullying amounted to unkind words fashioned to deal blows to his self-worth and keep him in his place, but among them were various indignities running the gamut from petty to despicable: tripping him and kicking him; turning him into the scapegoat for their wrongdoings so he would be punished for it in their stead; stealing whatever meager possessions he acquired to destroy or use them; scribbling threatening and humiliating messages in his books for him to discover later; locking him in a cramped, dark space and leaving him to anguish into the night. This is a new one, and it falls more to the despicable end of the scale where his very life was endangered. He can envision what drowning and bullying must mean for their undeserving victim. 

The monk nods with a heavy heart, keeping his eyes shut and his palms together as he closes that particular reflection with hopes that they never mistreated anyone else to that extent ever again. “As for your current affliction, I…” He opens them again to look at Raven, more sheepish this time and growing more so the longer he addresses the matter. “Well, I think that might be where I’m woefully... inconsistent and unpredictable. I’m not sure why exactly I could bear feeling you so… ah, intimately… and suddenly… and remain in a stable mood.”

It must be a problem if simply observing his partner talk about their sex life titillates him to the extent that it does, but he grants himself some pardon for his inexperience (and desperation). The idea that he felt such a part of him that way and is currently tracing it with his mind piques him in ways he wishes it didn’t. “I wonder that, myself…” he replies, ears tinting pink.

“Hmm…” He thinks backwards a couple minutes, passively watching the gentle furls of vapor. “When I woke up, I felt calm. I was looking at you.” He flushes, a delicate smile sweetening his appearance. “My heart was full of fondness. It must have offset the… the surprise.”

If hearts could get hard-ons, Raven’s would have one.

“I see…” he murmurs, digesting this information thoughtfully and with a touch of muted shyness.

“So it must have been my state of mind. I believe that, if I can maintain that sort of feeling and take things one at a time, I might be able to share deeper intimacy with you,” the monk states with blushing confidence.

“Then… are you suggesting something?”

Lucius inches even closer until they are only that measurement apart. A spirited, inquisitive shine glints in the doelike eyes he fixes on Raven’s. Then, he bows his head, deferential as he spreads his palms open for Raven to take. He does so with curiosity nudging at his brain, squeezing his delicate fingers into his calloused ones and forgetting to breathe. Though he awaits it, Lucius holds back an answer to his question. 

He shuts his eyes in lieu of speaking. In the darkness beneath his eyelids, he shuns the image of Raven for the snug warmth of his hands, how their fingers fit sublimely together and how it sparks wonderfully at his heart. They’re connected. However faintly, he can even feel his life force this way, two pulses severed by the barrier of flesh and bone but beating as one nevertheless. He squeezes back to cherish it.

Raven observes him carefully, wondering what these gestures mean but understanding, almost with telepathic acuity, that they carry significance for Lucius. Unreadable, his face is obscured by its downcast turn, curtained further by his wet tangle of hair draping over him like golden seaweed over his naked body, adding a peculiar ethereal touch in spite of its mundanity. All of him is so ineffably gorgeous, from the serenity he exudes to the moment he creates just by wordlessly holding his hands. 

“Lucius…”

He utters his name softly not to break the spell, but because he subconsciously wanted to hear it, to adhere it to the person kneeling before him who, despite all his familiarity, still manages to take his breath away like celestial phenomena reified into a being he is fortunate to share his life with. He strokes his thumb in his, and a quick, breathy laugh slips from his lover’s throat.

“We’re together,” he marvels. “After all of that. Can you believe it…? What a blessing…”

Every minute action he takes stokes the unquenchable blaze burning so fiercely in Raven’s soul for the other man that withholding affection for any longer becomes uncomfortable. The more intensely physical, the better to control it, to sate his urge to bring him closer and yet closer until he can’t discern where he ends and Lucius begins. It’s an urge he commands himself to repress for the sake of his partner’s well-being, but he permits some indulgence. He drags their combined hands behind his waist to fasten Lucius’s there and brings his own to rest one on his back; the other settles by his ear to guide his face to meet his. His eyes have fluttered open, and Raven uses them to determine that he is perfectly receptive to the deep kiss he wants to plant.

The musical moan that follows flares his passion to intenser shades. He combats the impulse to hoist him onto his lap with everything he has, though he meets trouble pressing into his back to compress their chests together. While satisfying and addicting, the danger he presents to his partner strikes fear into him. It isn’t enough to cut him off, but it lurks uncomfortably in the back of his mind as he savors the flavorless but ambrosial taste of Lucius firm on his lips.

And Lucius swallows what Raven feeds him, waxing eager but waning cold intermittently. He, too, fights an inner battle, fearful not of who kisses him but who has kissed him. What if a memory slips in unbidden? The force of his mouth pressing into his pushes him into a jagged, unforgiving stone wall, but Raven’s moans pull him back into his embrace. It’s more dizzily ambivalent and jarring in its magnitude than Raven’s apprehension, stemmed from deep-seated terrors rather than the bud of the one freshly planted.

While he considers tempering his advance, the prickle of Lucius’s hand trailing up his spine so sensually blocks his reservations momentarily. The hand at the side of his head drifts to the back of it. He subconsciously moves his hand lower, presses their bodies together. That’s when Lucius’s noises grow more distressed and he shoves his palms into his chest.

It’s a rude awakening for Raven, but he snaps out of his trance immediately and lets him go.

“Too much?” he hurries to ask.

“Y-Yes,” admits Lucius, unruffling himself in vain. He sinks into the water. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I… expected as much would happen.” Raven sighs, diverting his attention past his shoulder and into his remorse. “I could have showed more restraint, but I lost control.”

Lucius bites his bottom lip to ward off tears of frustration. It’s not fair to Raven. No matter what excuse he has, he should be able to brook the type of impassioned affection that stems from their bond, especially when his own heart is trying so hard to stay open for him. “You shouldn’t have to worry about holding back…”

“But I do.” He redirects his sights to the defeated monk, aching as he beholds his somber wilting. To reassure him past words, he sets his hands on his arms and vies for eye contact he is successful in receiving. “We may not like it, but this is our reality. I’m learning to accept it.”

“But…”

“This is what I want,” he interrupts with a firm shake before he can protest. “If I have to remind you a thousand times, so be it. I don’t want to share a love with you that sends you to dark places.”

“I don’t _want_ our love to be so dark!” he wails with a toss of his head. “I want to feel the warmth that is supposed to be here!”

“No need to act up like a child, Lucius! Listen!” He waits the handful of seconds it takes for Lucius to lift his chin and reclaim even a scant bit of composure. “I believe you can find that warmth. Eventually, we can do what we just did without your mind slipping away from me. We just… need to find another approach. That one isn’t working for you.”

Though he still sulks, Lucius submits languid, resigned nods.

“How about this, then? We can take a break, focus on scrubbing ourselves up a bit, and then try playing around with different approaches?”

“That… might be a good idea,” he muses.

“Can I kiss you?”

Lucius gives him a look of jarred bafflement at this abrupt request, then replies with slow, pronounced uncertainty, “Of course you may…?”

“How?”

Such a questions heats his cheeks up. “H-How? Lord Raymond, what is the meaning of this?”

“Just answer. How do you want me to kiss you?”

So embarrassed now that he’s dizzy, Lucius longs to submerge himself into the spring completely, but he buries his gaze down there in lieu of such an outrageous reaction. Raven trails his hands down his arms until he nets their hands together again while Lucius purses his lips and feels much like a teakettle ready to be lifted from the stove. Even when he gives the question serious consideration, the thoughts vaporize from his head like the steam that surrounds them. Raven can’t help but push an amused sound from his throat as he watches his partner roast under the pressure like the prude he is. It inspires him to do what only he and he alone is allowed to do, as far as he is concerned.

“You’re really starting to steam up, Lucius.” He leans in and jeers. “Just what kind of kiss are you imagining in that pretty little head of yours?”

“Oh, stop!” he cries sharply, twisting around so he can no longer bear witness to his messy expression. “R-Resign those suspicions at once!”

Laughter ejects ingloriously from the pits of Raven’s belly. “I tease, okay? But I’m being completely sincere when I ask how you want me to give it to you.”

After a constricted pause due to Lucius stuck in flustered limbo, Raven brings his hand to his mouth. Square on his middle knuckle, he places a sweet, feathery kiss. It manages to reel him back, trading the emotional chokehold for a little bit of stardust in his eyes, though he remains just as flushed as ever.

“Like that?”

“I, I do… _like_ that,” confesses the meekened monk.

He aims for the back of his hand, a little more firmly and lingering. “Like this?”

Lucius decides that since he’s made himself wide open, he can get back at him now for teasing him. “You’re actually quite the romantic, aren’t you?” he remarks with a giggle. Raven’s eyes pop open to glare at him.

“And you’re pretty good at ruining the moment.”

He never meant for his comeback to be so sharply potent, and when he sees the hurt flicker in his eyes, he realizes how that retort could be construed to encompass other ways moments between them were ruined, and he didn’t want to joke about those.

“...Okay, fine!” he elects to say, hoping to deflect away from that comment by owning his embarrassment with a rash edge to his voice. “I’m romantic! But only because you’re making me this way! You and your stupid… face... your sweetness…” By now, it’s gotten a little _too_ embarrassing, so he halts the procession of half-baked compliments before he overdoses. “This is all your fault, Lucius. You turn me into a sap.”

At least he laughs about it, and the lovely light he likes to see in his eyes turns on again.

“I will tell you how to kiss me, but let’s save it for later, shall we? Now, if you would please turn around...”

Piqued for multiple reasons, Raven obeys his retainer wordlessly, unsure what to expect but certain that whatever Lucius has in store for him, he’s going to like it. His hunch never fails as hands alight on his shoulders, fingers mold circles into his tired muscles, and much to his delight, he fulfills the promise he made when they first left Khathelet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was originally a lot longer, but I sliced it because it was growing untenable. Don't worry, though: the rest will show up later. I swear I'm not trying to outdo myself with regards to chapter length each time!


	14. Now Palms Open, Outstretched

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now steamier than ever.

Once refreshed, the pair settles at the edge of the pool, dangling their feet in it to take a break from the sweltering humidity. Like giddy newlyweds, they find it hard to remain unattached for too long an interval, and as such, their thighs touch and their hands rest cradled together as their heads lean into each other. The passage of time can only be traced by the shift and wane of the sunbeams that slant through the canopy of their earthen refuge.

“I’m afraid I’m not very creative,” admits Lucius after a lingering silence. Raven tilts his head when he faces him to communicate his addled intrigue.

“Huh?”

“About kissing.” He kicks up dashes of springwater with his toes. “All I want is your lips upon mine.”

Heart aflame, he gives his hand a tight, brief squeeze. “That’s…” So many things, he can’t shape them into words. Lucius chuckles self-consciously.

“I know. It isn’t much, but it doesn’t take much, either. The small things weigh so much to me.”

“Now who’s the romantic…”

He laughs again and aims a quick peck to his hot cheek. “I only speak my heart! Now… where’s my kiss?”

It’s unlike Lucius to be so demanding for affection, which strikes amusement in Raven as he closes what little space remains, hovering before the kiss he’d been holding to preserve the quality that made it special. Softening, he gently closes his eyes, slips an arm around his shoulders, and covers his lips with his. While given no particular instruction to go off of, he prevents prying Lucius open with his tongue, but basks in the warm buzz of their mouths converging, unhurried to end it. Lucius gropes for his free hand to hold it again, clinging to it with feverish strength. Raven finishes soon enough, peering into his eyes to gauge the effect. He breathes in relief when he detects no unwarranted fear, but still feels the need to ask.

“How was that?”

Lucius nods, lacing his arms around his neck and sidling so close he’s halfway onto his lap. Raven thinks to deter him, but ultimately can’t resist the sensual proximity, even when it pokes the embers of his arousal.

“You felt good against me,” he whispers, voice like velvet. “You usually do.”

It’s too late for Raven. He grimaces slightly at the awareness of his undoing, which causes Lucius to tip his head in honest concern. “My lord? What’s the matter?”

“It’s nothing,” he blurts, mouth tight around those words. “You’re just…” He averts his imploring eyes. “You’re really…”

He can’t even finish. Adjectives like _cute_ or irresistible frolic through his brain, but he utters none of them, imagining them to sound creepy, like something that might have oozed from Sebastian’s odious mouth at some point. Therefore, he keeps his tongue in check. 

Impatience nips at Lucius in his teeming curiosity. “I would like to know how you think of me,” he coaxes, brushing the very tip of his thumb against the back of his neck.

If he didn’t know any better about Lucius, he would suspect that he’s beguiling him. However, he can sense that there’s nothing artful about his inquisitiveness, and that all of the subtle touches to his current allure is just a trick played by his prospering desire for him. On the other hand, there’s no mistaking how responsive and welcoming he is to further intimacy in this moment, which, perhaps, is the killer blow.

Gods, does he ever want to kiss him into the cave floor. He refrains for obvious reasons. 

“That’s asking a lot from me,” he replies instead. “You’re too many things. I’ll make a fool of myself.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” encourages his partner brightly. “I expect we will do plenty of that together!”

“Hmph. Guess you have a point…”

Now what? Raven racks his brain for the next move to make, the next word to say (he still can’t bring himself to admit how he felt then), what limits are in place. He shudders against the thumb tickling his skin and realizes he wants to return to the waters, if not because he’s cooled down, then at least to conceal how much Lucius is getting to him (again). It’s not so much the fear of being teased for it as it is the fear of _inducing_ fear, or at least discomfort. 

As much as he is loathe to, he releases his lover and slides into the welcome veil of the spring, glancing up at him expectantly. Lucius follows with a bit of leverage from Raven to avoid hurting himself unnecessarily. He eases him down gently, then kneels to his level, touching foreheads. He wants to kiss him again, doesn’t want to overdo it, but then, an idea sparks.

“If I told you how I wanted _you_ to kiss me… would you do it?” he asks on unintentionally bated breath.

Lucius’s mouth pops open and hangs agape for a spell as he’s caught off-guard yet again by his candid questions. “I… erm, I-I might…”

“No need to be shy. You’ve done it before.” He bumps their noses with the traces of a smile. “Why don’t you at least give it a try?”

He rolls the suggestion around until he accepts. “I suppose there is no harm.” He shoves his palms in his face and rubs them as though it will cleanse him of his abashment. “Ahh; why am I so embarrassed?”

“Someone once told me not to worry about making a fool of myself, since it’s inevitable at a time like this,” taunts Raven with a mischievous smirk. “Very recently, in fact.”

“Fine!” he relents behind his shield of hands. “Give me the words, and I shall kiss you as you like!”

He loves it when he succeeds in exasperating Lucius, and to show for it, he snickers, closing his grasp around his wrists to pry them off. Stubbornly, he keeps them in place, but Raven doesn’t force him to expose. Now that he’s been granted a kiss to his liking, he loses himself to envisioning all the possible ways Lucius could grace him with one. It’s a shame that asking him to kiss him all over would be such a tall order, because that idea above all reigns incomparably divine.

“How about… you go for my lips as well,” he settles for.

Lucius stretches for him, but Raven shoves his hand between them before he can complete the transaction, which ends up receiving the brunt of his affectionate token. Lucius reels back in stupefaction while Raven snorts out a laugh.

“Whoa! Slow down. You didn’t even give me time to finish! Eager, are we?”

“Wh-What do you expect?!” he cries, scandalized and steaming over it so hard that his lower lip juts prominently. “Your pause was too final!”

“I never got to tell you _how_ I want you to do it.”

He crosses his arms. “Well, go on!”

“You’re a sight.” Raven waits a beat to collect himself enough to relay his wishes. “I want you to kiss me… hard.”

His petulance falters. “Hard?”

“Yeah. Y’know…” He gestures vaguely. “Kind of like I do when I get carried away. But I want you to be especially rough.”

And now, it gives way to diffidence. “...To do _that_ , I… I never…”

“Give me your best shot, Lucius.” He rolls away from cornering Lucius to the ledge and exchanges positions, sprawling recumbent against the slope of a boulder for the monk to make his moves. At first, his ‘moves’ are just wringing his hands tightly against his chest and pursing his lips anxiously, but he makes an effort to smooth his nerves over when the look Raven offers him expresses how genuine, bound and determined he is about this kiss, which, as he garners by now, he awaits ardently.

...In truth… he _does_ want to kiss him.

He clambers into position atop him, suspended by his elbows as he lowers his weight just above but not flush against him. Raven scoops his long, damp strands over one side of his head so it cascades in one collected, controllable mass out of their faces. It isn’t just Lucius’s heart that hammers like hoofbeats, but Raven’s is swept into the stampede, too, anxious to receive him like this and wondering how Lucius intends to deliver his request. Overwhelmingly often, Raven initiates their kisses, especially mouth-to-mouth ones, and always the fervent kinds. He has never experienced lying so exposed beneath his lover, destined for what he hopes will be an impassioned, prolonged mingle. 

Once he’s gathered his bearings, Lucius cranes in and approaches tenderly at first, but endows his second attack with a little more gusto. Already, it’s _good_ , and Raven lets him know with a sultry hum. This encouragement propels the monk to keep at him just like that, subconsciously descending just a little more in his newfound fervor.

Raven’s wants expand, and while his impulse urges him to wrap Lucius tightly against him, his better judgment kicks in and he finds another way to invite the more stifling proximity he craves. He parts his lips for Lucius and hopes he takes the submissive cue. He does, but… the way he pokes his tongue into the space is rather like a kitten probing for milk from a saucer.

He would be lying if it weren’t rousing in its own quirky right, but it’s more cute and awkward than anything else. He can’t let it go unremarked upon, for both of their sakes. He snorts sharp laughter and cuts their session short, Lucius popping off his mouth to flash agitation at him.

“What’s so funny?” he demands, covering his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Nothing, just… you call this ‘rough’?”

“I’m trying!”

He’s gentle by nature, he knows, but somehow, that’s part of the request’s appeal. “You don’t have to be so shy about your tongue. I won’t kiss back, okay? I’ll let you have absolute control.”

“Absolute control…”

He mulls over this as he closes the space between them again to kiss Raven hard. He thrusts into him again, feels weird about it, then retreats, offering his liege an insecure look of disgust. 

“Yeah, that lacked finesse,” admits Raven. Lucius pouts and shakes his head, discouraged.

“I’m no good at this…”

“You’ve barely tried, and moreover, you’re not used to it. Don’t worry so much about doing it ‘right’.” He rubs his back for an extra helping of reassurance, then adjusts Lucius by the waist to where he’s suspended just a tad higher above him for worry that they’ll brush against each other in ways Lucius might not appreciate yet. “Just try focusing on what feels good.”

He huffs. “Very well. I hope my continual blunders serve to entertain you, then.”

“Oh, there can be no doubt. Hey.” He cups his chin to curb Lucius’s attempt to bury himself in his shoulder. “Suggestion: rather than going hard all at once, try working up from softness?”

“Hmm… I will give that a try.”

Take Three commences, a little more practiced than the other two attempts. He starts off with light kisses, fitting them together at different angles, alternating between harder and softer. Raven moans appreciatively. Encouraged, Lucius sweeps his tongue inside, not too soft like before, and not like the second woefully stilted stab. Coming at him like this, he gathers focus away from his self-awareness, curious about exploring the dimensions of his partner’s mouth without any resistance from Raven’s usual impassioned advances. This time, a curling, glancing stroke to the roof electrocutes Raven and he doesn’t waste his breath letting him know how good it was. No matter how he approaches it, Lucius can’t help but feel as though, objectively speaking, this entire process of poking around with his tongue is a little weird, but he can appreciate its power to ignite addictive sensations between them. He remembers Raven wants it ‘rough’ and decides ‘rough’ can mean deeper, and he digs his forearms into the stone as he presses firmly into Raven, diving for his throat.

Yes; _this_ is how he wanted it to take off, triumphs Raven as he all but glues his arms to where he lies and makes a show of submitting to Lucius’s unsophisticated but invigorating moves. He could choke on his tongue for all he cares; hell, he could handle _deeper_ if Lucius would give it to him, and being taken by the mouth so rigorously feeds the fire burning at his groin. Their make-out experiment gets unexpectedly interrupted as Lucius prods at a particular spot and disconnects promptly in flustered alarm.

“What’s wrong?” gasps Raven.

“Open your mouth,” he demands urgently.

Raven squints, suspicious, disoriented, and reluctant to stop, but does as he’s told anyway. It’s not enough for Lucius, who reaches over to force his jaw even wider. The mercenary garbles protests as he fingers the problem spot toward the back of his mouth and adorns deep-seated concern.

“You’re missing a tooth…”

What a mood killer. At least it had more to do with him and not his fears. 

“Oh.” He sits up a little on his elbows, making an unsavory face at the image of where his tooth went. “Yeah. I don’t think we need to talk about that right now.”

“But why?”

“It's stupid. I’ll explain later. Besides, it’s just one little tooth no one sees. I won’t miss it.”

His reassurances have little effect mitigating the worry, but he decides to drop the matter as Raven wishes. “If... you insist…”

“Speaking of which…” He props himself up a bit more. “How do you feel, Lucius?”

He exchanges that concern for thoughtfulness. “Well… despite my incurable embarrassment, I feel fine. Good, in fact.”

“No bad memories?”

He pauses to give it two bouts of consideration. “None. No, none whatsoever. Not yet, anyway.”

“What if…” He sits up more fully this time, setting Lucius’s hind end onto the thinner portion of his thighs to avoid any awkward, sudden contact. “What if we started making some rules for us?”

“Rules?”

“Yes. Boundaries. Until you’re ready for me to break them.”

“But what rules are you referring to?”

“I think there’s something I’d like to try in order to ease you into this. What if I weren’t permitted to touch you at all?”

His gut reaction contends against this proposal. “But… Don’t get me wrong; I like your touches…”

“You can always ask me to do things to you. Grant me permission.”

“But…” 

In Lucius’s interpretation, he laments the loss of hugs given to him when he never asks, or how much he loves his hands on his back. Raven detects his forlorn shift and aims to smooth his qualms over.

“Only while we’re making love, and only until you feel ready for me to handle you. We’ll work our way up to more, you see.”

“I… Well, that is a sound idea, in theory.”

“I think it’s worth a shot. What about you?”

Lucius deliberates. Would it truly ease him into a space where intimacy with the man he promised himself to is no longer distorted by unpleasant fragments of his past? He forces himself to gloss over violent disgraces. Each one punctures him somewhere, like fighting through a cage of thorns. He unknowingly cultivated them himself to protect his fragile mind from any more indignities, but what protects him also harms him, and Raven cannot reach him, even when he offers his hand to free him from his bitter entanglement. He’s touched here and there and by him and him and the color drainage must have worried Raven because in spite of his suggestion, he’s holding him softly at cautious length, which… does, in fact, help. In response, as though to grope for reality, he fondles the slopes of his well-developed arms, paying attention to the shape of him, his broad back beneath his caress. Even when he closes his eyes, he’s here with him: breathing, sighing, nuzzling his cheek. How could darkness ever reach a place like this?

“Look… I don’t want to just be another shadow like your past. I want my presence to bring you solace, not fear. When I hold you like this…” He squeezes him gently, pressing Lucius’s face to his shoulder. “No harm is ever supposed to come to you. I want so badly for you to learn that.”

Lucius clutches onto him, onto the comfort he offers. It’s enough relish to provoke tears once dipped in sorrow, now relief. “The figures from my past… They always took control of me. I never… had the right, the capability to do anything but comply.” He wipes at his hot, salty mess and swallows his emotions down to focus on his reasoning. “If I were given all the control, instead…” He reroutes his hands away from his shoulder blades and rests them on his chest, sitting up in the process and filling his eyes with Raven. “I…”

“Go ahead,” he nudges. “Touch me all you want. I’m yours.” 

“Mine…” he echoes, tracing his collarbone reverently. His. Respectful obedience had been instilled in him for as long as he can remember, from the fearful submission he learned from the orphanage to the servile courtesy he practiced as a vassal of House Cornwell. It’s so finely woven into him that it has become a fundamental part of his personality, and therefore, going so far as to touch Raven on his own accord seems an immodest breach of etiquette. As such, he is unaccustomed to possessing full, prompted access to admire his body as he pleases with the faculty of touch. Odd feelings stir within him, uncomfortable but intriguing, and he nibbles at his bottom lip as he guides his left hand around the subtle slope of his pectorals.

Experiencing Lucius above him sends Raven to another realm; he can’t peel his eyes off of the shy wonder that highlights the way Lucius roves his body, sight and stroke. “That’s right,” he murmurs. “I belong to you as much as you belong to me. We’re partners. Friends. Lovers... I have no reason to fear your touch.”

His encouragements alleviate some of his inhibitions, place his mind on the track of their mutual goal. While it seems like a guilty pleasure he should not be permitted to indulge so actively, his frame of mind shutters somewhere less corporeal. He is already well-acquainted with the man this body belongs to, so growing a little more acquainted with the body that belongs to this man, and to _him_ … Curiously enough, it seems ineffably sacred, like a ritual meant for two souls who have pledged immortal love. If he proceeds to sketch the outline of his sinew here, dares to trail the tip of his finger in a line toward his submerged stomach… His attention flits to meet Raven’s, and he finds warm, muted passion in the fiery luster of his eyes silently spurring him to continue.

It’s nothing like any of his other intimate encounters. Always, he had been the subject— no, the object of affection, that is only required to remain still and have actions done upon him. Never had he wanted to participate. Now, he finds that, as he peppers Raven’s jawline with dewdrop-sized kisses, scale the side of his body with a sweep of his fingertips, he does. As a fellow person with a beating heart all his own.

Highly attuned to every minute sensation doled out to him, Raven quivers beneath the light, light touches dusting his flesh, how they decorate his neck and dip lower, thumbs dancing in circles around his chest as Lucius loses himself to the art of loving him. He doesn’t expect much from him in all his traumatized hesitation, but he seems content enough that it pleases him immensely— and in more ways than one. The pressure between his legs grows increasingly unbearable, and Lucius supplies his lust with the double edge that conquers satisfaction while spurring ache. As much as his basest self wants to, he has already vowed not to take their amorous play too far. But this is a great push in the right direction. Lucius erringly prods his nipple and strangles an abrupt, heated moan from him in all its stark, embarrassing ecstasy. Lucius has the nerve to giggle.

“Oh…” And the breath of that utterance ghosts his neck to make matters worse when he simultaneously tests another rolling sweep to his hardening flesh; it’s bad enough that he jolts, and now he’s starting to rethink whether or not Lucius is secretly a master of seduction playing coy this whole time, especially when he tops it off with a much firmer kiss to the side of his neck, enough to bend him, like he’s trying to replicate what Raven wanted in the one targeting his lips. But who’s the REAL inexperienced virgin around here?

Then, he pulls back to seek his eyes, donning a look more appropriate for whenever he spies a minor injury scored upon him. Oh, no. Why is he fretting now?

“Does this, um… truly feel good?”

Raven stares back at him like he asked if fish really do swim. “Uh… Look, how else do I put this. Yes?” His pink flushes crimson as he adds, “I only moaned against my will just now.”

He makes way for a smile, chasing away some of that unease, but not all. “I suppose it should have been obvious… I’m not sure why I felt the need to check.”

“No, you’re doing great.” He snorts derisively at himself. “Or maybe I’m just easy to please?”

“That’s not a bad thing, my lord.” He tilts his head, smile warming. “Right?”

His sweet countenance is cupid’s arrow true to his heart. He can scarcely handle viewing it for too long. “We’ll see about that,” he mumbles, ashamed. Because he might just erupt if he’s subjected to any more of Lucius. He hasn’t the experience to know how much he can take when in the hands of someone else.

Likewise, Lucius hasn’t the experience of laying his hands on someone else with the intent to direct carnal exploration. Another wave of sheepishness rolls into him as he asks, “Where… How should I touch you next, Lord Raymond?”

“Sheesh…” he interjects. He won’t dare voice where he truly wants— no, _needs_ to be touched next. “You’re excessively polite, even when we’re engaged in something like this.” To abate the critical edge to his complaint, he moves in to kiss him, but stops just before he connects, even when Lucius awaits it. The monk opens his eyes in mild surprise when his lips remain untouched, then realizes the meaning behind his halted advance and the focused chagrin burning his face. Lucius laughs at him, then delivers him with a kiss of his own.

“Do you really have to ask me for one of _these_ , too?”

Raven scowls, but he blushes, too. “That’s the rule I just made, isn’t it?”

He kisses him again, warmer than the last. Raven moans into it. Lucius hums more closed laughter, both amused by his beloved’s staunch resistance to initiation and the resulting eagerness to receive his. The evidence of that eagerness was music to his ears. Once their eyes open to each other, Lucius appreciates the dull blaze of Raven’s love flickering for him, and in turn, Raven falls for the twinkling lights of Lucius’s. 

“I… I fear I could kiss you all night,” whispers Lucius, like he betrays a dark secret.

“What do I have against that?” purrs Raven, utterly arrested by infatuation. 

They magnetize each other; Lucius claims Raven’s cheeks in his hands as he kisses him with the insistence of rainfall, each one deepening, coalescing into wet fervor that would put their steamy sanctuary to shame. Unused to playing a strictly passive role, every brush of his lips, sweep of his tongue, stroke of his fingers, and friction of their thighs rubbing together threatens to drive Raven past the brink, especially when all he permits himself to do is lie back and receive it. It’s a special kind of torture, and he loves every maddening second of it. Raven prevails in Lucius’s damaged mind— his taste, his voice, his shape, his everything. _Their_ everything, all that they have shared and will continue to share, and with that in mind he feels the longing to permeate him and have it done unto him in return. At last, it begins to feel purely good. Addicting, even. However, wasted by blinding passion, Raven unthinkingly grabs ahold of Lucius to demand his undivided indulgences, and the way he yanks a fistful of his hair springs him out of his soaring rapture.

He pushes Raven away instinctively. Raven recognizes his error, and in panic he reflexively grabs him again, this time by his arms, even when he intended to let go. At gut-level, his grappling meant to convey the avalanche of compunction that buried him, but that, too, was a mistake he’d sooner smack himself for. And yet… he can’t bring himself to let go. 

“No! I’m sorry!” he yells, squeezing his wrists desperately as Lucius wriggles to escape. “I didn’t mean… I just… It was a reflex!”

Lucius ceases struggling, but the distant terror still warps his face. It ends shortly when Raven’s cries bring him home. He relaxes in his grip, which makes his grip relax in turn, and both mercenaries settle into a profound, apologetic exchange of looks.

“...This is harder than I imagined it would be,” admits Raven, the trouble in his heart carved finely into his brow. Lucius’s gaze capsizes in even deeper remorse.

“I-I panicked…”

“Reasonably enough. I… told you I wouldn’t touch you unless prompted, and yet I…”

Lucius retrieves his capacity for eye contact and tries to win Raven’s with a tilt of his head. “Please don’t let it bring you down, my lord. It was only a mistake. It must be a difficult habit to break for you, and I am being a… a horrible, horrible tease. I just wish I weren’t so sensitive that I break from one tug of my hair…”

“No, you don’t get it.” He lets go of Lucius’s arms and leans back on his palms. “It doesn’t sit well with me that I lacked such control over my own impulses. How are you supposed to trust me if I can’t even trust myself to handle you with the care you require?”

“Because…” Lucius starts thoughtfully, then smilingly, soft like candlelight. “I trust you. The core of you, your intentions and where they are rooted. And, putting it simply…” He places a hand to his heart, as though pledging. “I love you with all my heart. The fact that you feel such regret proves that you _do_ care.” He edges a little closer, places both palms on his chest, and leans in to place a gentle kiss to his lips. Raven finds it hard to contest him when he’s so reassuring.

“Nonetheless, I will try to do better next time. Hair-pulling is absolutely off the table. ...Must have hurt, huh?”

“Oh, I have a tougher head than you think!” He giggles, but it only disturbs Raven to think too hard about the ramifications of a loaded statement like that. “...But yes, do try not to yank on my hair in the future. I…” He thought to explain his reasoning, but shuffles the lurid memories away in favor of basking in the glow of his present. “I…” He blushes, realizing something that might pique Raven’s interest. “I think you were at least successful in another right…”

Intrigued as Lucius wanted, Raven tries interpreting the playful dance in his eyes, wondering if (hoping) he’s correct in assuming it has anything to do with the passion stoked between them. “Enlighten me, Lucius.”

“Well… I’m not quite ready to show you with my body, but…" He burns hot enough to sear all of his hair right off his scalp, and with the addition of steamy water, it's a wonder Lucius hasn't fainted by now. "...Is the hint enough, yet?”

Raven stares shamelessly, too enraptured by the concept to care about what his face does. “...I can’t wait until you are. Lucius…” He swallows after forgetting to for so long. “What would you… How are we going to finish this?”

His smile loses confidence. “I don’t know, precisely. Are you, um… close?”

“...” He tears his eyes away from Lucius, finding his shame again. “Yes…” he mumbles, barely comprehensible. His faintest of hopes yearns for Lucius to kindle his climax, but he has already relinquished it before he can have any unwarranted expectations.

“Then…”

“If that makes you uncomfortable, then I can just finish the rest myself. But what about you?”

“Me?”

Raven blinks. They had been on the same page, right? “You’re not even a little bit aroused?”

At the suggestion, Lucius flushes and breaks eye contact. “I-I am, but I… don’t exactly know how to solve my, er… problem.”

Raven just keeps blinking. “Come again?”

Why is he staring at him like he grew a third eyeball? Lucius fidgets with his hands beneath the water, growing increasingly ashamed under the confusing pressure. “Um… That is to say, I have never…”

It occurs to Raven that Lucius really does mean what he thinks he means. And that astonishes him as much as it doesn’t, considering his ugly history with sexual encounters.

“You mean you’ve never…”

Lucius nods, pursing his lips and bowing his head.

“...So, that means you’ve never even touched yourself?”

He shakes his head solemnly.

Raven takes an extra pause to process exactly what he’s dealing with. It’s shocking for him to imagine never even once wanting to scratch that particular itch, but then again, this accentuates that frustrating gap in understanding each other. It isn’t too difficult to at least try, though. He has to think about what sex has meant for Lucius, and unfortunately, that means trying to place himself in his predicament, which is unpleasant to a degree that he can barely tolerate without seeing red. 

“I suppose I can see why,” he adds with clenched teeth.

“It’s… too unpleasant. I feel so dirty, and it’s strange to feel…”

“I really need to change that,” blurts Raven in his growing ire. “Mark my words; by my own hand, I will banish those thoughts that make you feel wrong. But…” He winces. “Perhaps not yet.”

“No… Let’s not push things,” agrees the monk with the same sad resignation. “For now, I will be content that you enjoyed what I did to you.” He smiles for him, parting the clouds of his stormier thoughts with that preferable one. “Are… you shy about finishing up in front of me?”

Because he’s so desperate for any meaningful sexual intimacy with Lucius, that idea alone rocks his world. But it also embarrasses him to consider feeling his eyes upon him as he strokes himself to oblivion. “Are… you _sure_ you want me to do that?” He twists a wry grin into his serious expression. “It must be a terrible sin to beat the old bishop in front of a monk.”

“W-What did you say?! What is the meaning of... Shame on you! Such a foul turn of phrase at a time like this...!” 

Raven recovers from his brief spell of laughter, pressing his knuckles into his mouth. “Sorry. It was worth the look you gave me. Hopefully I didn’t deter you with my words.”

“No, but I’m considering it,” he threatens with disappointed peevishness. In spite of the outrageousness of Raven’s remark, he cannot redirect the way he has set his heart on this matter, even when he tries. He settles back into the earnestness of their conversation. “If we want to continue inuring me to this type of intimacy with you, I should get used to it, shouldn’t I?” He holds his tongue when it comes to the next point he wanted to make, knowing it would upset him: _I am no stranger to men gratifying themselves upon me; why should I refuse the only one I want to accept?_ “I can back out whenever I choose. Just… don’t grab at me, please.”

“This time, I swear I won’t lay a finger on you. I won’t make the same mistake again. I’ll keep my hands to myself,” he vows.

For extra precaution, Lucius dismounts Raven’s lap to kneel at his side. He balances himself with hands on his shoulders, locking eyes, sanguine as he regards his soulmate with a fluttering heart.

“Are you ready, my love?”

Raven finds it hard to believe he’s still bound to this mortal earth, squatting in a cave with the crime of murdering some noble scumbag haunting him, and not ascended to a heaven more enchanting than what really must be waiting up there. The angel that took him here closes his eyes and the distance between their lips. Once the nervousness peters off, Lucius finds it easy to get absorbed in the emotions that he expresses through his touch. He kisses him; Raven relishes it, over and over as he stokes a rhythm between his legs to match. Lucius is fully aware of his hand at rigorous work, but he finds he does not mind it at all. Would it be a mark of shame to confess that he discovered an unfamiliar appeal in it? He savors the knowledge of his impassioned bid and eschews watching it with eyes closed and a busy, tingling mouth and fingers sifting up his lover’s scalp. 

The intense pleasure builds, and it’s nothing like what’s afforded to Raven in isolation. He swiftly loses sight of all shame when he pants roughly and moans wantonly into Lucius’s mouth, swept into the current of his own administrations, and sooner than he’s even aware of its end, his orgasm slams into him. For a few seconds, his world becomes pure euphoria. He longs to snatch that sort of bliss and make it last, keep this sublime sensation that condensed his world into just him being kissed into oblivion by Lucius forever, but before he can, it’s over, and he crashes from the explosive high.

At the very least, Lucius is still kissing him. Softer than before, but he’s there, somehow preserving a faint trickle of what made that overpowering experience so special. His heart glows, and bending the rules a bit, he offers the tiniest of kisses back. It makes Lucius giggle in pleasure and surprise. When he stops, so does Lucius, and they share dizzy eye contact for the first time since Raven lost himself, gasping for air like men almost drowned.

“How do... you feel?” whispers Lucius, ironic coming from him.

“...Incredible,” breathes Raven, spellbound. “From just that alone…”

“Oh, that pleases me so much!” cheers Lucius on the same soft, wasted voice. “I feel… Is it bad for me to feel like I accomplished something?”

It’s Raven’s turn to laugh, one hoarse note that rushes out mostly from his nose. “No.” It’s hard to feel ashamed for spending himself before his traumatized partner for the first time when his rejoicing is so endearing. He gazes up at him, warm in the fullness of his smile and the serene gleam of his inviting brown eyes. “I’m impressed. That was… really satisfying. My main regret is that I can’t pay you back for it the same way.”

“Ahh… Well, I _am_ satisfied, in my own way. I could tell you were utterly enraptured.”

His face burns at the thought of being rendered in such a humiliating, desperate light for Lucius to experience, vulnerable and craving release like an insatiable beast. Of course, that’s what he signed up for, and they will bare so many more shameful moments for each other. Reframing it like that eases him a little bit. Besides, Lucius will inevitably entertain him with more of his blunders and quirks, so it will soon be his turn to laugh.

The only reason Lucius laughs, though, is not out of mockery, but exultation. He’s proud, satisfied, and relieved all at once, and Raven can determine that much. Seeing him like this convinces him that no matter what kind of act they share together, if the end result is his shining face, it’s worth that as a goal in and of itself. Body and soul, he’s never been so fulfilled from this.

He’s tired, though, and his legs feel like gelatin from tensing so much, and suddenly, the notion of deep sleep sounds more appealing than anything else. Ideally, he could wrap Lucius up with him and drift off more content than he’s been in a while. He yawns, sinks in place, and gives his partner his hazy but fond attention.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for a nap.” He glances up at the skylight, then the rocky structures in the cavern, picking out potential spots to collapse. 

Although Lucius aches in a way he has never fully played with nor gratified, he readily relinquishes his amorous interests for Raven’s needs. It helps that he can relate so well to exhaustion. “We have had an eventful few days, and we still have much traveling to do… I think that I will join you.”

“Mm.” He opens his arms. “Lucius, come here.”

Lucius smiles. “Yes, my lord.” He climbs onto his lap perpendicular to Raven and enters his waiting embrace, and Raven pulls him close, nuzzling the top of his damp head with an outpouring of so much grateful love from his heart that it swishes around in his chest almost like seasickness. He holds on tight, almost too much as he fears losing someone this precious to him. If he never has to let him go, he could never be taken.

Fully aware of the childish way this type of thinking goes, he falls into the private weakness regardless. He feels safe to express it with Lucius in his arms, and the sick part of it slowly evens into the natural calm that his serene presence can offer him. His hold on him slackens, and he begins to drift closer and closer to sleep before Lucius pokes him, laughing at his expense. “Don’t sleep here!” he whispers.

“Nnn… Right…” he grumbles, reluctant to move.

Sluggishly, he manages to remove himself from the hot waters so that they may prepare to camp out for a night. They return to address Lucius’s ankle again first, binding it securely and comfortably, and then tend to the vacant burn of famishment that took residence in the pits of their stomachs with a careful portion of the rations they were provided from the castle. It didn’t fill them, but it did the trick to quell the pain. The harshness of the cave floor does not serve as an ideal bed, but they select a groove ensconced by gnarled rows of stone jutting up like a hedgerow of pitchforks, concealed from immediate sight for peace of mind should anyone embark upon their shelter.

The steam preserves them from the inordinate chill of the majority of cavernous tunnels and the cooling night above them. Their bodies entwined also provides them that essential. All they have in the ways of bedding are the clothes off their backs, but they wouldn’t dare sleep naked, only in their primary layers, using articles of Lucius’s as pillows, capes and coats as rudimentary blankets they swaddle into. Neither of them complain of it.

Lucius attaches himself to Raven like he _is_ his bed. Raven doesn’t mind one bit. His weight is, in fact, a great comfort to him, and he finds himself drifting off a second time. Lucius watches the peaceful cast of his expression dreamily for a while within the crib of his arms. Whatever it was they shared in the hot spring had been rewarding, promising. For the first time, he had been capable of seeing it through without the shroud of stifling darkness preventing him from connecting his soul to Raven’s as such an act, he thinks, is supposed to afford when conducted rightfully. As much teeth as their various foreboding circumstances that threaten to engulf them possess, how is it that they can find such solace within? Lucius finds appreciation that they can, and then, faith that they can overcome whatever hardship pounces upon them next. Pain throbs dully at his foot, but even that fades away with the sleep he is lulled into at last.


End file.
